The Paloma / Faith + tequila

Posted on 10th July 2017 by Andy

Yes, I forgot the lime garnish. Sue me.

The Paloma / Faith + tequlia.

Before we get started, a quick point of order. I’ve had a few readers ask why I publish my recipes in such arcane units as US ounces despite being a European. My reasoning is explained on the measures page but in future I’ll try to remember to include metric alternatives in all my recipes. Feel free to berate me in the comments if I forget. Frankly, I’m too lazy to go back and alter all the older recipes so let’s just call it a grudging compromise and move on. Anyway:

The most popular tequila based mixed drink in Mexico is, perhaps surprisingly, not the Margarita but the Paloma – which is Spanish for dove. Comprised of a generous measure of tequila over ice topped up with grapefruit soda and a wedge of lime, you could think of it as a Mexican gin and tonic. I know what you’re thinking; “we can do better than that!” And you are quite right. But before we get to work let’s talk about tequila’s place in cocktails:

There is tequila and there is tequila. And in my opinion we should only ever use the latter; that being the kind that clearly states “100% agave” on the label. The reason so many people will tell you they hate tequila is because they’ve never actually had real tequila. What they’ve had – often long ago – is some cheap “mixto” tequila which was fired down their throat when they’d had far too much to drink already. The shot of tequila ends up getting the blame for the hangover that the ten previous drinks caused. Real tequila is a wonderful and very natural spirit that is both well regulated and a joy to explore. Once we’re safely into the 100% agave zone the market is quite fragmented with dozens of brands to choose between at quite a wide range of prices. Furthermore there are three grades of pure tequila; blanco/silver (unaged), reposado (slightly aged) and anejo (aged). While tequila prices can vary considerably there is not usually a great deal of price difference within the same brand for these three types. That being so, I really can’t see much point in using white tequila when you can have smoother and more flavourful reposado or even anejo for just a little more. To cut to the point I like to stock a good budget reposado and a more mid-range anejo for my mixing purposes (see update below). As usual the high end offerings are best left for sipping, their finer nuances lost in a cocktail. In this case I used El Jimador reposado which is an excellent value for money 100% agave tequila and, apparently, the best selling tequila in Mexico. I figured 120 million Mexicans can’t be wrong. A jimador is the hombre who harvests the agave plants which is a tough but highly skilled job. I think you can see where I’m going with this…

So back to our Paloma. My version of the Paloma was born out of a lack of grapefruit soda in my neck of the woods but it was soon clear that it was likely to benefit from couple of upgrades along the way. The grapefruit soda is replaced with a good glug of either fresh (if available) or high quality bottled white grapefruit juice, a little lime juice, some agave syrup and just a splash of soda water. Reposado tequila instead of blanco also lifts our game significantly. The float of mezcal is entirely optional but, in my opinion, really takes it to the next level. As a result of these tweaks our pimped-out Paloma is less fizzy than the original but much more flavourful. While it’s moved a long way from the original recipe I feel I still need to pay homage to the base drink so I decided to name it after a singer who likes to sing about responsible drinking – Paloma Faith.

Paloma Faith.

2oz / 60ml reposado tequila (I used El Jimador).

3oz / 90ml white grapefruit juice, fresh if possible otherwise quality bottled*.

0.5oz / 15ml fresh lime juice.

0.75oz / 22.5ml agave syrup*.

Shake with ice and strain into an iced Collins glass.

Top up with soda (about 2-3oz / 60-90ml) and stir.

Float a teaspoon (5ml) of good quality mezcal on top.

Garnish with a slice or wedge of lime.

Toast the jimadors – whose hard graft makes tequila possible.

*Both agave syrup and bottled white grapefruit juice should be available at your local health food shop.

XXX UPDATE XXX

I no longer recommend El Jimador as it has, in my strong opinion, declined in quality over time due to modernised production methods. However I leave the article above unchanged.

Also my views on tequila have changed somewhat since this five year old article and I now stock an affordable but good quality blanco and reposado for mixing and for sipping pick more expensive reposado.

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The Last Word.

Posted on 7th July 2017 by Andy

Word up! Word? Up? Never mind.

The Last Word –

Bartenders talk about this drink in hushed reverential tones for it is truly a masterpiece of liquid engineering. Probably originating from the Detroit Athletics Club around a century ago, The Last Word is an unlikely sounding equal parts mixture of gin, lime juice, green Chartreuse and maraschino liqueur. Our cocktail compass tells us that one part of lime juice to two parts of pretty sweet liqueurs should make for a rather syrupy and unbalanced drink but The Last Word stubbornly refuses to comply with our expectations. Outrageous! How dare it be so balanced, so delicate, so complex? Yet the Last Word was, nor is, a superstar cocktail. It spent most of its life in the shadows and even after its 2004 resurrection at the hands of Seattle bar legend Murray Stenson it remains something of a bartenders cocktail. The ability to mix a good Word is the measure of a skilled bartender; while the proportions are easy to remember, attention to detail and precision are essential. A drop too much of either of the liqueurs, a lack of dilution or an under-chilled glass can kill this beauty stone dead. By now you should really have three of the ingredients for this wonderful cocktail and the green Chartreuse, while on the pricey side (especially outside of Europe), is an investment that will last many years. It’s an intriguingly complex liqueur that’s worth having for this recipe – and its variations – alone. At this juncture I consider it my duty to inform you that the colour is named after the drink and not vice versa. Who says this isn’t an educational blog? One last word; if there was ever a surefire way to endear yourself to the bartender, it’s to order a Last Word. Or to tip generously.

                                                 – or is it?

The number of drinks that the Last Word has spawned is hard to track and, indeed, the dust is yet to settle on many of those variations. Some are so far removed from the original (such as the Paper Plane) that all that remains are the equal proportions, while other versions have clashes of names and claims of authorship. Subbing a good mezcal such as Del Maguey Vida for the gin makes the delicious La Ultima Palabra. Or is that called the Closing Argument? Or is Simone de Luca’s version that adds a(n equal) measure of pineapple juice and a sprig of thyme the true Ultima Palabra? Gaz Regan says so and he’s Gaz Regan. And what of Phil Ward’s Final Ward with rye for gin and lemon for lime? Murray, Murray, what have you unleashed?

The Last Word.

0.75oz London dry gin.

0.75oz fresh lime juice.

0.75oz maraschino liqueur.

0.75oz green Chartreuse (not yellow).

Shake well with ice and strain (double strain if preferred) into a well chilled champagne coupé.

Toast Murray Stenson for bringing this lost classic back to life.

Feel free to try the variants above as they are actually all rather good too.

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The Caipirinha + muddling.

Posted on 5th July 2017 by Andy

Stuck in the muddle with you…

The Caipirinha –

When it’s hot, muggy and energy is hard to muster, there’s nothing quite like a Caipirinha to pick us up. No wonder then that it’s the national drink of Brazil. The base spirit of the Caipirinha (which roughly translates as “peasant girl”) is cachaça of which Brazilians produce over 1.5 billion litres of each year and consume almost all of themselves. Respect. Cachaça is a sugarcane juice distillate that is either sold unaged or aged in wood barrels. So it’s rum? Yes and no. Without going into details let’s just say it’s a close relative to rum. In its basic unaged form it’s inexpensive and kind of rough but with addition of sugar, lime and some crushed ice it is magically transformed into something truly transcendent. It’s always puzzled me because if you did the same thing with some dodgy bottom-shelf white rum it would taste like crap, yet the Caipirinha is fresh, bright, earthy and just rrrrghhehh ngheheh – it’s just fabulous. Don’t be tempted to stray too far from the formula below; while cleverly worded variations may sound appealing there is no need whatsoever to mess with the best budget drink in the cocktail canon.

                            – and the art of muddling:

The Caipirinha is made in the glass so no shaker is required, instead you’ll need a muddler. In cocktailworld we like to use fancy words for simple things to make us seem special. So if you don’t have a muddler any fat stick will do. For example I used a wooden pestle for years until a wood-turning friend (cheers Tom!) made me the King of all Muddlers (see picture). But, really, anything with a wide flat end will do – so at last you’ll have a use for that Harry Potter wand you got for your birthday. Proceed thusly: In a large squat glass (a double old fashioned glass is optimal) throw half of a fresh lime cut into four wedges followed by two teaspoons of sugar (fine is best). Using your chosen muddler press the juice from the wedges and work the sugar and juice together. Give a twist as you press. Try not to totally destroy the lime as this will release unwanted bitterness from the pith – you just want enough pressure to get the juice and oils out and into the sugar. Congratulations, you are now a certified muddler. Now simply add the cachaça and top up with crushed ice. Give it all a good stir, making sure that the sugar gets lifted from the bottom of the glass and mixed in well with the cachaça. Indeed, leaving some kind of stirring implement is a good idea. This is one case where I don’t suggest using sugar syrup in place of granulated sugar as, to me, the occasional unexpected sweet hit of a little undissolved sugar is a crucial part of the experience.

Cairpirinha.

2oz cachaça (I like 51 brand even though it’s dirt cheap).

Half a large lime cut into four wedges.

2 teaspoons of white sugar.

Muddle as described above.

Toast those top scoopers – the Brazilians. Ordem e Progresso!

 

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Moral Turpitude.

Posted on 1st July 2017 by Andy

Who you lookin’ at numbnuts?

Moral Turpitude – a drink with an attitude problem.

Since we’re over all that reduced alcohol nonsense (honestly I really don’t know what came over me there) and since we’ve been discussing aviation, I think we need to have a little talk about moral turpitude. Wha? Those who have taken a flight to the USA in the past might fondly remember the (now sadly extinct) green card that had to be filled in on the plane.

Exhibit A

It was a magnificently pointless exercise. For example: question C – are you a spy? How many answers are there to that question really? I always wanted to tick “yes” and scribble “but not a very good one” next to it but Mrs Proof wouldn’t let me. Probably just as well. But question B is by far my favourite – how many Americans, let alone foreign visitors, have ever heard of a “crime of moral turpitude”. On top of this you have to declare your ‘tude before departure but they only tell you about it once you’re halfway across the Atlantic. Genius stuff this. But hang on, moral turpitude? That sounds like a name for a cocktail to me! And starting with the name is always the best way to go in my book. What should be in it? Some European stuff and some American stuff would be a good starting point – a veritable transatlantic melting pot of booze. In my experience simply taking a bunch of your favourite ingredients and mixing them together rarely works but in this happy case I think it has. To be honest it took a lot of tinkering with but I think it was worth the effort. The Moral Turpitude is a stirred whiskey drink that plys a route somewhere between the Manhattan and the Negroni. It’s a grown-up drink which demands to be treated with some respect and is certainly not for the faint of heart. I left the balance a touch on the bitter side, moderated ever so slightly with an essential spoonful of that king of the orange liqueurs – Grand Marnier. Picking an alternate amaro to the Nonino can be an interesting exercise (Montenegro works well) but the Punt e Mes is the only vermouth you should use as all others lack the crucial bitter element. Try another bourbon if you must but be warned; in my opinion only the kickin’ chicken has what it takes to stand its ground in this mix.

Moral Turpitude.

1.5oz Wild Turkey 101 bourbon.

0.75oz Amaro Nonino.

0.5oz Punt e Mes vermouth.

1 teaspoon (5ml) Grand Marnier.

2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters.

Stir with ice and strain into a DOF glass containing an iceberg of clear ice.

Garnish with a twist of lemon peel.

Toast the mystery bureaucrat who came up with this gem of in-flight entertainment.

 

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The Aviation.

Posted on 28th June 2017 by Andy

Aviation – Savoy/Proof version.

The Aviation – one name, two drinks.

The Aviation is a cocktail that is very close to my heart. I shook up my first one in 1998 in the dying days of The Dark Ages and I’ve made more of these than any other cocktail by a considerable margin. Not because it’s my favourite but because it’s everyone else’s favourite. While, now and then, I might wish my guests would ask for something different I don’t hold it against them as the Aviation is a quite wonderful drink. But it’s a drink with a split personality. Let me explain.

The Aviation is an old drink. Created by Hugo Ensslin in New York and first published in his 1916 book Recipes for Mixed Drinks this would make the Aviation as old as, well, aviation itself. Almost. Clearly Hugo named it after the most exciting new technology of the day. If he was repeating the exercise today this drink would be called the Galaxy S8. Hmmmm. Hugo’s Aviation comprised 1.5oz gin, 0.75oz. lemon juice, 2 dashes maraschino liqueur, and 2 dashes crème de violette (you can consider old school liqueur dashes to be about an eighth of an ounce). Maraschino is an Italian liqueur made from the stones of Marasca cherries and was a common sweetener in early cocktails. Crème de violette is an elusive French liqueur made from violets which is intensely violet and violetty.

As far as we know the Aviation really took off (see what I did there?) after it was included in Harry Craddock’s massively influential Savoy Cocktail Book of 1930. But there was a problem. Harry got the recipe wrong, or perhaps changed it deliberately. Some have theorised that he skipped the crème de violette as it was by then unavailable. That idea doesn’t wash as the recipe right above it contains that very liqueur. Whatever the reason Harry’s two parts gin to one part lemon juice with two dashes of maraschino liqueur (1.5oz, 0.75oz, 0.25oz) became the de facto recipe for another seventy odd years taking us right through The Dark Ages and well into the Revival. By then there was an interest in the old recipe books and Ensslin’s recipe was rediscovered. This was superb timing because, at just about the same time, the long-extinct crème de violette came back on the market. Thus the older recipe was resurrected and behold! the violette bestowed upon it a pale sky blue colour and verily were many palms slapped to many foreheads and much was the word “doh!” to be proclaimed. And some said “This is the true Aviation, returned from seven and seventy years in the wilderness, and all others are but a heresy!” and others said “The Aviation of my fathers and my fathers’ fathers is the True Aviation and we know this for it is the Word of Craddock and is Written in the Book of Craddock!” Some other heretics, who still couldn’t find any crème de violette, used other liqueurs (creme Yvette or parfait d’amour) instead. What a mess!

The Grey-viation?

So now what? Well first up let’s ditch the substitutions – it’s got to be crème de violette or nothing. But the truth is that crème de violette is a powerful and distinctive flavour which not everyone likes and can be quite dominant. I find that if you use enough of it to attain the pleasant sky blue colour it takes over the drink. If you use less of it you end up with a balanced but rather grey looking drink. Of course it could be that another brand of violette might improve matters but the truth is that creme de violette still isn’t that easy to find. In any case my preference is to go with Harry’s recipe and boost the maraschino content to cover the loss of the violette (which left it too tart). Besides, I have another drink that better showcases crème de violette, of which more soon.

The choice is entirely yours but below I present my “house” version which, in my experience, eight out of ten cats prefer.

The Aviation.

2oz London dry gin (I like Bombay Sapphire in my Aviation).

1oz fresh lemon juice.

0.75oz maraschino liqueur* (Luxardo).

Shake hard with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Drop in one cocktail cherry†.

Toast Hugo and Harry.

For the 1916 version replace 0.25oz of the maraschino with creme de violette.

*Note that this should never be replaced by other cherry liqueurs or second rate versions. As far as I’m aware only Luxardo or Stock maraschino are up to the job. Thankfully Luxardo is widely available these days.

†We’ll be talking about cocktail cherries soon. Watch this space.

 

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Reduced alcohol drinks #3 – Sixteen Rum.

Posted on 23rd June 2017 by Andy

Italian Irn Bru?

Sixteen Rum.

In this third and final quickfire low alcohol series we stick with the Italian theme. Italian food and drink culture is big on flavour yet they still have a pretty healthy relationship with alcohol. That’s why the desire for a lower alcohol version of Campari gave rise to Aperol, which we used in the Galileo. Italian drinking is also very structured: with lunch a spritz or Americano, before dinner an aperitivo, with dinner wine, after dinner the digestivo. Apparently the 11% Aperol was still a bit too heavy on the alcohol and thus was born the effervescent 0% aperitivo, Crodino. Unusual stuff this, bittersweet and pleasantly herbal it comes in a tiny, tiny little 100ml bottles (we don’t want to dull our appetite do we now?) It’s tasty enough on its own but it seems a little lonely in a glass. To me this just must be the basis for our last low octane drink. A little internet research throws up an interesting sounding Crodino based mixed drink called the Sixteen Rum. Yes, from a shoe website. Seriously, you can’t make this shit up. Word has it some Italian Count “served this drink to attract young and fashionable guests to his home.” Is it just me or does this sound a bit dodgy, especially considering the drink’s name? Hmmm. But anyway, Rum, right! Let’s do this!

The quantities of rum and vermouth are just as miniature as those little bottles so this will stay well within our brief, coming in at 12.6ml of pure ethanol. Just about exactly the same as our small beer benchmark. I love the idea of this – it’s just so, I don’t know, dinky. Which is all very well but is it any good? Well, yes. Quite delightful in fact. Unlike the Galileo it won’t quite convince you that you’ve had a proper drink but it comes remarkably close. It would make an excellent lunch, brunch or pre-dinner drink in the vein of the Americano. Neither of the recipes I found specified exactly which rum to use so we should take that as a licence to experiment. My first effort – Captain Morgan’s Jamaican/Black – worked rather nicely. Further experiments will follow. Being “built” in the glass makes it an easy drink to prepare – especially for a larger number of guests. Perhaps it would be an idea to put the rum, vermouth, ice and slice in their glasses and give them the little bottles of Crodino to pour in themselves? If so make sure a stirring implement is included.

If your supermarket doesn’t stock Crodino you should be able to find it at any Italian specialist/deli. If you make this one at home be sure to lock the front door first, so as not to get mobbed by underage drinkers in fancy shoes.

Sixteen Rum.

0.75oz rum of choice.

0.75oz Italian vermouth.

100ml bottle of Crodino.

Mix in glass with plenty of ice.

Drop in a slice of orange or lemon.

Toast the Italians – masters of the aperitivo.

 

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Reduced alcohol drinks #2 – The Galileo.

Posted on 22nd June 2017 by Andy

Thunderbolts and lightning, very, very frightening…

Inventing Galileo.

Part one of our reduced alcohol cocktail series was a simple substitution exercise so I think we need to dig a bit deeper and come up with a genuinely original low proof drink. I’d like to create something that is as satisfying as a full strength drink yet has a similar alcohol content to a small beer. To give you some insight into the creation of a from-scratch recipe I’ll describe the process involved. Or you can save your sanity and skip right to the recipe.

Line up every bottle I’ve got that’s under 20%ABV on the counter. Stare at them for about half an hour and thoughtfully twiddle with beard. What flavours might work together? What about sweet/sour balance? Has that combination been tried before? Too close to an existing cocktail? What will the final colour be like? Next I try some combinations in very small amounts shaken with a little ice. Hmmmm – dry white port and Aperol are quite nice together but they need something more. How about as a base for a sour style drink? So I add lemon juice to the list. Now we’ll need some sweetness to bring it back into balance. Sugar syrup? Sure, that would work but can we do better? Well I’ve got some elderflower liqueur that’s not getting much use, let’s give that a go. With the lemon juice as an ingredient this will have to be a shaken drink and it should have a nice red colour so let’s serve it “up” in a nice vintage glass. I try an ounce of each as a starting point. Not bad at all. It’s got a nice flavour balance, you get the bittersweet of the Aperol tamed a little by the lemon and some nice floral notes from the elderflower. The distinctive bite of the white port takes a moment longer to come in which gives a nice double-take effect to the drink. But it’s too sweet. Clearly too much elderflower liqueur. I should have seen that up front. I try again with less of it and I’m pretty happy with the result. I could tinker with the proportions but something tells me I’d end up back at this mix. Does it taste like a proper cocktail despite the weaker ingredients? Very much so (score!). Is it too close to a Paper Plane? Well they look alike but there are only two shared components so I think I’m safe to call it my own. Garnish? I settle on lemon peel but I’ll try something different with it. My lemon “kebab” should mean there is plenty of surface area to waft lemon oils into the drinker’s schnozzle. Right, we’re almost there but we’ll need a name for it. For once I’m stumped. I check my long list of prospective cocktail names (yes, I know). Firefly? I google it and it already exists. Damn – scratch that one off. Where is Aperol from? Ask Wikipedia. Padua, Italy. Anyone else from there? Galileo taught at the university. Sorted – looks like we have a new cocktail. In this case I also want to work out the alcohol content in ml of ethanol. I multiply the quantity (in ml) of each component by its ABV and add them up. 13.8ml. Just over the target of 12.5ml (the equivalent of 250ml of 5% beer). I can live with that. And that’s how I spend my evenings. Sad, isn’t it?

Galileo.

1oz / 30ml dry white port (20%ABV).

1oz / 30ml Aperol (11%ABV).

1oz / 30ml fresh lemon juice.

0.75oz / 22.5ml elderflower liqueur (20%ABV).

Shake with ice and strain into a chilled champagne coupé.

Garnish with a lemon “kebab” or a strip of lemon peel.

Toast Galileo Galilei for inventing science. And being a useful Paduan.

XXX   Update   XXX

Using fino sherry instead of white port is also delicious – and even lower in alcohol!

 

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Reduced alcohol drinks #1 – Toy Scooper.

Posted on 21st June 2017 by Andy

Toy Scooper.

Low booze booze.

It’s hard work being a cocktail blogger. A lot of experimentation and fine tuning is involved and while a true professional would cast his failures down the drain my inner Scotsman seems to deny me this option. The sacrifices I make for you guys… All of this leads to an alcohol consumption that is somewhat over the government sanctioned units-per-week line. The fact that neither my country of origin nor my country of residence currently possess a functional government would seem invalidate those limits for the time being. This lack of guidelines may have lead me to get a bit carried away recently so perhaps it’s time to explore the world of low proof cocktails.

As anyone who has tried to make an orange juice Old Fashioned will attest, it is a difficult task to make a satisfying sipping drink without the use of the spirit component. Perhaps there is a distant corner of our brain that realises that alcohol is a potentially dangerous substance to ingest and forces us to slow down and savour it in small doses. Or perhaps it is something to do with the physical properties of ethanol itself. If there are any biochemists reading this please feel free to chip in. At any rate there is little available to us to emulate the body, mouth-feel and sating properties of our usual base spirits. Some cocktailiens have attempted to reduce the potency of cocktails by using lower ABV ingredients such as wine, port and vermouth as base ingredients with, in my opinion, mixed success.

Always on the lookout for mixable liquids I’ve been messing with one of the latest raft of health fad products – coconut water. It’s peculiar stuff – kind of sweet and salty at the same time without really being either. And it has an interesting silky texture that you could almost call body. I wonder. So I tried replacing half of the rum in a classic Daiquiri (much of my experimentation starts with a Daiquiri). Now it’s not often this happens but the first experiment was bang on – the low-octane Daiquiri was great. You’d hardly know you were drinking a paltry 12ml* of ethanol and you even get some more complex notes from the coconut water as a bonus. While more experimentation is needed (can we use coconut water in place of other spirits?) I think this first one is good enough to present here.

So what will I call this? A loooooong time ago I worked with a guy who divided all of humanity into those who drank a lot (approved of) whom he called “top scoopers” and those who didn’t (looked down upon), the “toy scoopers”. Aha.

And, of course, all the top scoopers can now have twice as many…

Toy Scooper.

1oz white rum (such as Havana Club 3 Añjos or Plantation 3 Stars).

1oz coconut water (as close to 100% as possible, no added sugar or flavourings).

0.75oz fresh lime juice.

0.5oz sugar syrup (1:1) adjusted to taste.

Shake well with ice and strain into a chilled champagne coupé.

Toast all the “toy scoopers” in the world.

Make teetotal guests a Nada Scooper by replacing all the rum with coconut water but don’t invite them back. Although, to be honest, even that is pretty damn tasty.

*less than half a pint of 5%ABV beer.

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White Negroni

Posted on 16th June 2017 by Andy

It’s a nice day for a White Negroni (yea-ah).

 

White Negroni.

Last week was international Negroni week and Negroni‘s are red. But we don’t like to colour inside the lines, do we? Nah, didn’t think so. So here we are with the White Negroni. If you’ve not already noticed there is something of a Negroni craze underway (our favourite restaurant has a Negroni menu FFS) and I’m having a bit of a problem with it. You see I’d love to get all indignant about it and tell you that only the original recipe (equal parts gin, Italian vermouth and Campari) is valid and that all these crazy impostor versions are just a silly fad. The problem is that many of them, although by no means all, are very, very good. For example the Mezcal Negroni (sub gin for good [no worm] mezcal) is, frankly Mr Shankly, simply mind blowing. Tinkering with the base spirit and type of vermouth is one thing but ditching the Campari is surely beyond the pale. And yet here we are. Something of a modern classic, the White Negroni even dares to replace the key ingredient with another bitter component and – mamma mia! – it’s not even Italian. Suze is a French bittersweet aperitif which I might hesitate to call an amaro but is certainly a close relative. Suze might be a bit one dimensional but, sacrebleu, what a dimension! The principal flavour is gentian, a powerful floral bittering agent found in many other amari but in this case it stands pretty much alone. Suze dials the gentian up to 11, tasting kind of like Lillet Blanc on steroids. Speaking of which, the White Negroni uses Lillet itself as the vermouth replacement and also brings along some citrus notes to boot. It’s a drink that really shouldn’t work but somehow does and still somehow manages to not, not be a Negroni. This white version has become quite widespread of late – perhaps due to the simple proportions and ease of production – and any cocktail bar worthy of the name should be able to whip one up for you. It seems to me that this upstart is here to stay. And very welcome it is too. For most of the year I’m very happy with my classic Negroni but in the heat of summer I’m inclined to go for its paler twin. At least for a couple of weeks.

Research indicates the White Negroni was created in 2001 by Wayne Collins to showcase Plymouth gin and French (rather than Italian) ingredients. Soon after it made its way to Audrey Sanders’ Pegu Club in New York via Plymouth brand ambasssador Simon Ford and thus into the heart of the nascent cocktail renaissance.

White Negroni

1.25oz gin (Plymouth if you have any).

1.25oz Suze.

1.25oz Lillet Blanc.

Stir with ice. Strain into a DOF glass containing one large block of clear ice.

Garnish with a slice of grapefruit or lemon peel.

Toast Wayne, Simon and Audrey; the chain that brought us the White Negroni.

Note that with the equal parts recipe you can go anywhere between and ounce and an ounce and a half of each. If you find it a bit too bitter try a 2:1:1 ratio which is often used.

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Southside + double straining

Posted on 10th June 2017 by Andy

Gangsta style.

 

Southside + double straining.

The Southside, like the Daiquiri and the Gimlet, is an exercise in balance between lime and sugar but with an added element – mint. Yes, it’s a simple affair but a delicious one as well as a useful introduction to the concept of adding more than just liquid ingredients and ice to our shaker. Throwing a sprig of mint in the shaker is an excellent way of extracting all the oils from the mint leaves. Yum. The problem is that you’re left with about a zillion tiny mint fragments in your drink. The solution to this is the technique known as double straining. If you’re using a cobbler shaker it’s just a case of holding a fine strainer between the shaker and glass as you pour – a two handed task but by no means tricky. Incrementally more tricky is double straining while using a Hawthorne or Julep strainer and if those are your choices I suggest practicing a couple of times with just ice and water to avoid embarrassment in front of guests. As you can see in the picture a double strained cocktail is smoother than a single strained one. While the tiny shards of ice and smaller mint fragments are held back by the fine strainer you will notice some super-tiny mint bits get through – don’t worry about them as they are too small to cause the drinker any offense. Double strain whenever you have some fruit or vegetable matter in your shaker that you don’t want in the final drink. Beyond this the question of whether to double strain or not is ambiguous. Some drinks are nicer with some shards of ice glinting on the surface and some are more attractive smooth – the choice is entirely yours.

Origin stories of the Southside are many and varied – as is the recipe itself – but, if I have to pick a favourite, I’m going for the Chicago gangster version. Legend has it that, during prohibition, Al Capone’s crew were in control of the South side of the city and only had access to sub-standard bathtub gin, the taste of which was often disguised with lime and mint. The tale sounds a bit spurious but, hey, never let the truth get in the way of a good story, right?

Southside

2oz gin of choice (if you’ve made some in your bath so much the better)

1oz fresh lime juice.

0.5 – 0.75oz sugar syrup (1:1) to taste*.

1 sprig of mint (6-10 leaves).

Shake with ice and double strain into a chilled champagne coupé. Garnish with a single (dry) mint leaf.

Toast Al Capone for fighting the greater evil of prohibition.

*The amount of syrup will depend on the sourness of your limes, the strength of your syrup and the sweetness of the drinker’s tooth.

The Southside can be lengthened with ice and soda into the Southside Fizz (think gin Mojito). Or with Champagne as a Southside Royale.

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