Cascade Golfer 19th Hole

April showers bring May botanicals

The Golden Canopy Innovative culinarian and barman at Everett G&CC unfurls bliss in a glass

BY BART POTTER • CG STAFF WRITER

Cabinet of Curiosities Oasium Gin sparkles this springtime

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Mark Russell is a gin guy.

As the food and beverage director at the venerable Everett Golf & Country Club, he wants to turn his customers on to gin and the craft cocktail possibilities it presents.

The 32-year-old Russell, an industry veteran, is young and tuned in enough to have caught the innovation vibe that’s made gin a fascinating segment in the spirits industry over the last decade.

It’s why he was delighted this winter to try a brandnew expression of the gin art – Oasium, a limited-edition release from the Hendrick’s Gin Cabinet of Curiosities series. It’s why he gladly set about creating a new cocktail, with Oasium, for this 19th Hole feature.

“It’s always fun for us to feature not only a cool company, but a cool spirit,” Russell says.

When he was hired on at the club in March 2024, he found an older clientele, which included some members whose grandparents were founding members at Everett when it opened in 1910. If these guys thought about gin, it was the piney, juniper-y gin — the stuff of classic martinis.

According to Russell, those gins — the London dry gins, the Tanquerays and Bombays of the world – are still high-quality spirits for cocktails. However, Oasium (made in Scotland by Hendrick’s, and owned and distributed by William Grant and Sons) is not one of those gins.

As the new barman, Mark was able to refresh the club’s whole beverage approach, which had gotten a little dated, right along with the clubhouse building. It helped that the club finished a $12.5 million renovation of the clubhouse in December 2024, its first real makeover since the 1970s.

Says Russell, “It just elevated everything into, ‘Hey, we have this incredible building. Let’s match it with a great cocktail program and a great wine program.’”

At Home Bar Mixology

The Golden Canopy

By Mark Russell • Food & Beverage Director • Everett Golf & Country Club

INGREDIENTS

• 2 oz. of Hendrick’s Oasium Gin

• .75 oz. whipped egg white

• .75 oz. fresh papaya juice

• .5 oz. house-made lemongrass syrup

• .75 oz. fresh-squeezed lemon juice

• 2 dashes of cardamom bitters

INSTRUCTIONS

Begin by shaking all ingredients, minus the gin, in a cocktail shaker. Add the Oasium and ice, shake again, then double strain into a coupe glass or equivalent vessel found at home. Garnish with a dehydrated lemon wheel and serve. Enjoy and dazzle your friends.

Mixology Master Mark Russell

Mark Russell didn’t just decide one day to be a gin guy. It’s been a journey through the U.S. and the wine and spirits industry. It started when this kid from Lake Stevens (eight miles or so from Everett) poured his first drinks as a 19-year-old bartender in Boise, Idaho. It took a while to get back home.

He worked his way through Boise State University behind the stick at the local Barbacoa Grill. There, he learned to appreciate the craft and what it takes to be a great bartender.

He once worked at RPM Italian, an A-list, high-volume bar in Washington D.C. It was there that he worked with “incredible bartenders, super knowledgeable.” Russell had stints at top bars in Seattle and Portland. Then it was back east again, this time to North Carolina, where he was assistant beverage director at Chapel Hill Country Club for a couple years before he and his fiancée decided to move back home.

Along the way, he caught the golf bug. So, the move to Everett G&CC was a natural.

“I love golf,” he says. “I’m able to play, play with members, be able to travel around, but also have my passion for the beverage side of things still be a focal point in my career.”

And sometimes, he gets to introduce a cocktail at the same time he discovers it for himself.

Thus: Hendrick’s Oasium Gin and the Golden Canopy. The whipped egg white adds texture. The papaya and lemongrass lend an “extraness” to the enterprise — cardamom bitters add “pop.”

“This gin highlights every other ingredient,” he says, “and vice versa.”

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