What People Drink in Montreal: 6 Traditional Beverages That Define Québec’s Metropolis

Montreal drinks are shaped by long winters, maple forests, and apple orchards just beyond the island. The city’s bilingual, festival-loving culture embraces warming winter cups, orchard-born ciders, and craft reinterpretations of colonial-era recipes.

From sugar-shack season to summer terrasse life, locals choose beverages that mirror the climate: sweet heat for the cold, crisp cider for the thaw, and woods-driven aromas year-round. Here’s what you’ll see poured across bars, markets, and celebrations.

Caribou is Quebec’s iconic winter punch: a blend of red wine fortified with rye whisky or brandy, lightly sweetened with maple syrup or sugar, and often mulled with cinnamon, clove, and orange peel. It’s a mixed drink rather than a fermented beverage, typically reaching 12–20% ABV depending on proportions. The aroma is vinous and spicy, with a warming, slightly tannic finish that cuts through the cold.

Folklore links caribou to 19th‑century loggers who allegedly spiked spirits with animal blood; today’s version—mercifully bloodless—became a carnival staple. You’ll encounter it at winter events across the province, most famously during the Carnaval in Quebec City, and at Montreal gatherings like light festivals and outdoor markets. In the city, bars prepare it by the batch, serving it hot in mugs during deep-winter months and occasionally chilled during late-season festivities. It pairs naturally with sugar-shack fare or a plate of tourtière, and you’ll find bottled caribou-style blends at SAQ shops for at-home celebrations.

Cidre de glace (ice cider) could only have been born in a climate like Quebec’s. Producers press apples and concentrate their juice either by cryoextraction (harvesting and pressing naturally frozen fruit) or cryoconcentration (freezing fresh juice to remove water), then ferment the rich must slowly at low temperatures. The result, typically 7–13% ABV, is lusciously sweet yet balanced by sharp acidity. Expect aromas of baked apple, honey, apricot, and spice, with a viscous texture and long finish.

Pioneered in the 1990s and now regulated by provincial standards, ice cider reflects orchards in Montérégie and the Eastern Townships—regions that stock Montreal’s markets and wine lists. In the city, it’s served chilled in small glasses as a dessert wine, often alongside blue cheese, foie gras, or tarte tatin. Look for it by the glass in contemporary Québécois restaurants, or pick up half-bottles at SAQ and gourmet shops near Jean‑Talon Market. It’s a prized souvenir precisely because it relies on the region’s deep freeze—a terroir expression impossible to replicate in warmer places.

Beyond dessert styles, Quebec’s dry and semi‑dry ciders are everyday staples with deep roots. Pressed from local varieties like McIntosh, Cortland, Empire, and russeted apples, they’re fermented in stainless steel or neutral oak; some makers use wild yeasts or bottle‑conditioning for fine bubbles. Most fall between 5–7.5% ABV. The profile ranges from crisp, aromatically fresh apple and pear skin to lightly tannic, earthy cider with subtle spice and a brisk finish.

Modern cider houses have revived traditions that waned in the mid‑20th century, drawing on methods from France and the UK yet leaning into Quebec apples and acidity. In Montreal, ciders are by-the-glass fixtures on terrasses in warmer months and an easy swap for beer with casual fare—think fried smelts, rotisserie chicken, or a salty charcuterie board. Harvest season (late summer into fall) brings seasonal cuvées and orchard showcases across city bars. For something celebratory, seek méthode traditionnelle bottlings, aged on lees for creamier texture and autolytic notes that nod to sparkling wine.

Spruce beer (bière d’épinette) is a historic North American beverage with a strong Quebec lineage. Traditionally, brewers simmered young spruce tips with water, adding molasses or brown sugar before fermenting with brewer’s yeast. Today’s craft versions—distinct from the popular non‑alcoholic spruce soda—typically land around 4–7% ABV. Expect resinous pine and citrus‑zest aromas, wintergreen and vanilla‑like tones from the needles, and a gentle caramel note if molasses is used.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, spruce beer was valued for its vitamin C and was brewed to ward off scurvy during long winters. Montreal’s modern microbreweries revisit the style each spring when bright-green tips emerge in boreal forests, sometimes blending in local grains or subtle hopping. You’ll find seasonal draft releases and limited bottles in taprooms across the city, especially in late spring and early summer. The beer’s herbal intensity suits smoked meat sandwiches, maple‑glazed ham, or roasted root vegetables—flavors that echo Quebec’s pantry while showcasing the forest in your glass.

Maple whisky liqueur blends Canadian whisky with pure maple syrup, yielding a smooth, dessert‑leaning spirit often bottled around 30–35% ABV. Aromas lean to maple taffy, toffee, vanilla, and rye spice; the palate is viscous and gently warming, with sweetness moderated by whisky’s grainy backbone. Sortilège is the best‑known Quebec label, though several local producers craft versions with different syrup grades and barrel treatments.

Culturally, this liqueur channels cabane à sucre (sugar‑shack) season—late March into April—when sap flows and Montrealers head out for hearty meals and maple on snow. In the city, it’s a common digestif, poured neat or over ice, or spiked into coffee in winter. Bartenders also use it in cocktails: swap it for simple syrup in an Old Fashioned, or mix with lemon and soda for a highball that reads like a maple whisky sour. Bottles are widely available at SAQ, and small formats make easy gifts that unmistakably taste of Quebec’s maple forests.

Acerum is a distinctly Quebec spirit produced by fermenting maple syrup or concentrated maple sap and then distilling the wash, often to 40–45% ABV. Unaged acerum shows clean maple‑sugar and cereal notes with a light floral lift; aged examples pick up vanilla, baking spice, and toasted nut from time in oak. The production echoes rum (sugar source fermented, then distilled) but the raw material is entirely from Acer saccharum—hard maple—rooting the spirit in Quebec’s forests.

Formalized under a producers’ association standard in the late 2010s, acerum gives bartenders in Montreal a local base spirit for classic templates. Try it neat in a copita to catch the maple aromatics, or in cocktails: an Acerum Old Fashioned with orange bitters, a maple Daiquiri riff using fresh lime, or a Manhattan variation that tilts toward toffee. You’ll find it in specialty bars and at SAQ, with limited releases appearing around fall and winter. Acerum connects city drinking directly to regional terroir—the sap season, the freeze-thaw cycles, and the boreal canopy that defines life in Quebec.