Cuckoo for Coconut

Toronto bartenders are making creative new concoctions with summer's nuttiest fruit

- KATE DINGWALL

COCONUT IS A classic summer cocktail ingredient. The tropical mix-in adds that salty-sweet creaminess to a piña colada and masks the punchy taste of rum in a painkiller. But the palm fruit (which is actually a drupe, not a nut) isn't just for super-sugary beach bar drinks. These days, the city's mixologists are shoehorning coconut into bright spritzes and bracing nightcaps. Case in point: it's surprisingly at home in a manhattan. At Short Turn, the sleek new sister spot of 416 Snack Bar, Michelle's Manhattan (an ode to recipe developer Michelle Rabin's famous Miso Banana Upside Down Cake) is made with whiskey fat-