Four: a Barbore Martini

There are a number of things I want to talk about.

1. Angus Winchester has promised a bottle of Tanqueray No. Ten and a book from his extensive library of vintage and modern mixellany to the inventor of the drink named as the official Martini of Barbore. This is madness. I am, of course, totally there.
2. Tea. A liking of tea is culturally hardwired into anyone who lives in the UK for more than six months. But there's way more to it than the bags of gunpowder routinely sweetened and enmilked in mugs across the land.

On the first, I really don't need a lot of encouragement to play around with Martini variations. I'm on the record saying that I think the Martini is a great drink but the current fashionable serve - vodka with next-to-no vermouth and no bitters - is hard work. So, honestly, the mere possibility of more cocktail reading and free gin (free gin!) is another carrot.

On the second, tea is really gaining some traction as an ingredient in mixed drinks. Any unbelievers should check out Charlotte Voisey's presentation on the theme from Tales of the Cocktail 2008. Different teas cover a wide spectrum from airy and floral to dark and pungent, and can be used to compliment a range of spirits and flavours.

There's a subtle coming together of themes on the way.

Basically, I wanted to use some white tea to compliment the camomile and citrus notes of Tanqueray No. Ten. To break it down to the most basic level, tea comes in three ways: black tea, where the leaves are left to fully oxidise; green tea, where the leaves are partially oxidised; and white tea, where the leaves are prevented from oxidising. According to Wikipedia - home of facts - the best examples of the highest grade white teas are said to be picked from undamaged and unopened buds in China's Fujian province between March 15 and April 10. When it's not raining. Curiously, white tea doesn't seem to be as popular worldwide as green, black tea or oolong. The next step was to find a way to infuse the tea flavour into the cocktail.

Rather than just adding x-ml of traditionally made white tea into a mixing glass, I decided to make a more concentrated infusion - soaking two bags in 150ml of vodka (I used Absolut, being the only plain vodka I had lying around) with a vanilla pod over a low heat for about three minutes. When I say low, I mean flames barely visible on the hob. The last thing you want to do with a spirit infusion is start another fractional distillation. With that done, I played things pretty traditionally. Being a martini for cocktail geeks, I've paid special attention to things like the starting temperature of ingredients and the specific amount of time they should be stirred for. Not because I particularly wanted to, but everyone else has...

A Barbore Martini

60ml Tanqueray No. Ten (at room temperature)
10ml Punt E Mes (from the fridge)
15ml White Tea infusion (from the fridge)
1 drop Angostura Aromatic Bitters

First, stick a small martini glass or a coupette in the freezer. Stir all the ingredients with ice in a standard mixing glass until it frosts over. Fine-strain into the chilled glass and snap a grapefruit zest twist over the top - don't drop it in!

Three: Coco Arándito

Last Thursday I was lucky enough to be competing in the Scottish regional of the Gin component of Diageo's World Class competition, which involved spending the afternoon in the shiny surrounds of Hawke & Hunter. 'Course, when you get a bunch of bartenders in one place, there's only one thing we talk about and one topic stuck in my mind. Someone had mentioned that most bartenders tend to resort to similar drinks when they get asked to make something on the fly. I have a tendency for subbing ingredients into a standard Cosmo recipe (see last week's Bloomsbury Cosmo, for example), so I decided to branch out, leading to this little creation. It's a simple twist on a Mojito.

Coco Arándito

50ml Koko Kanu
25ml lime juice
2 barspoons vanilla sugar
8 mint leaves

Muddle mint, sugar and lime juice in the base of a highball glass. Add the Koko Kanu, fill with crushed ice and mix well. Top up the crushed ice and float 25ml cranberry juice. Garnish with a mint sprig and lime wedge.

Two: Bloomsbury Cosmo

I've been kicking around some ideas ahead of Thursday's regional for the Diageo World Class competition. The heat could involve presenting up to three different drinks, including one classic or twisted classic gin cocktail. I'm not sure if this one is right for the comp, but y'know, still tasty.

Bloomsbury Cosmopolitan

40ml Tanqueray Gin
10ml Elderflower cordial
30ml Cranberry juice
15ml Lime juice
1 dash Fee Brothers Orange Bitters

Shake all ingredients with ice and fine-strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with a flamed orange zest.

One: Homecoming cocktail

It seems that I thought it would be a good idea to post a new cocktail recipe every week through 2009, which is what happens when you leave me in a room with a bottle of 10 Cane. So, without any further ado, I present the first of the fifty-two. 2009 marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, a man who would, over 37 short years, come to embody Scottish literature. Moving between rural Ayrshire and Edinburgh high society, Burns became a major celebrity - his intemperate ways helped him to premature aging and an early grave which is about as rock'n'roll as you can get before Rolls Royces and swimming pools were invented.

Every year, Scots celebrate January 25th the same way - with a dinner for Burns Night. There are toasts to the poet's immortal memory, the Selkirk Grace, even an address to a haggis. In addition to the traditional celebration, the Scottish Government has launched Homecoming 2009, a series of events aimed at attracting people with Scottish ancestry to visit the country. The fun kicks off on Burns night and, over the course of the year, will cover events like the Edinburgh International Festival, the Heineken Cup Final and the Royal Highland Show. One thing that isn't included in the calendar is, of course, anything cocktail-related.

See that? Smooth.

There are a decent clutch of contenders for a Burns night cocktail. You could go for a Rob Roy, or a Whisky Mac or Rusty Nail could be in with a shout. Then again, there's always the Bobby Burns, detailed in the Savoy Cocktail Book, a blend of Scotch, sweet vermouth and Benedictine. It's a good starting place and a great drink, so I haven't made any huge changes to it. The major change is that I decided to use Drambuie instead of Benedictine, mainly because it's Scottish and it fits the idea of the drink. There's a bonus given that as a whisky-based liqueur, it blends well with pretty much any Scotch as well as bringing a bunch of interesting floral and spicy flavours. On top of that, I decided to push the boat out and use a single malt for the whisky. I had wanted to use Auchentoshan - a Lowland malt - purely because it's made closer to where Burns grew up than most others, but it's also triple-distilled and unpeated and didn't come through against the Drambuie. In the end, I went for a 12 year-old Bowmore, kinda smoky and a bit peaty, but nowhere near as full on as some other Islay malts. Finally, I lobbed in a couple of dashes of Fee Brothers Peach Bitters. It's not a hugely exciting recipe, but it is a tasty drink and at least it's a start.

Only fifty-one to go...

Homecoming Cocktail

40ml blended Scotch Whisky (I used Johnnie Walker Black Label)
15ml Drambuie
25ml sweet vermouth (Martini Rosso)
2 dashes Peach Bitters

Stir all ingredients with ice and strain into an ice-filled Rocks glass. Garnish with an orange zest twist. It doesn't have to be as mental as the one in the photo.

MxMo: Spice

It's Monday, and that means it's about time for the international drinkblogging community to showcase all the cool things we've been playing with. This month's Mixology Monday is being graciously hosted by Craig at Tiki Drinks & Indigo Firmaments (thanks!) and - topically, for Christmas - the theme is spice. Spices belong to that category of things you won't miss until they're not there. It's literally inconceivable to eat without salt and pepper on the table. Vanilla has become so prevalent as a flavour that the word can be used to describe things that are boring, unremarkable, and yet the general connotation of spices is of exoticism, of a faraway culture.

The problem I've always found when using spices in cocktails is that I tend to focus on one in particular, with the result that the drink ends up pretty one-dimensional. This time, I made a conscious decision to use a range of spices but I also realised that combining a number of ground spices, roots, barks and the like in a shaker would prove troublesome. In order to get around the problem, I made a bottle of Krupnik, a traditional Eastern European vodka liqueur, using some honey, cloves, cinnamon sticks, vanilla pods and nutmeg. Being honest, if I'd used red wine as a base and replaced the honey with a couple of orange wedges, I'd have ended up with mulled wine - the stuff tastes like Christmas in a bottle.

There was another problem, and this time there wasn't a lot I could about it. Christmas is crazy time in the bar industry, meaning 300 covers over the course of the day in the brasserie and 12 hour shifts representing an easy day. Saturday, for example, started at 10am and finished at 2am, with just about enough time to grab a Chinese takeaway and a coffee around 5pm. All of this made it tough to find the time to prototype drinks.

This isn't something I'd call a hardship. After all, I've always been a fan of making drinks that are a simple twist on an established cocktail. From what I know of David Embury's Fine Art of Mixing Drinks, he concludes that all cocktails can be traced back to six 'essential' cocktails, so I can claim I'm on decent theoretical ground. I played with a couple of ideas - a Krupnikito could have legs, I reckon - before deciding on a simple twist on a Cosmopolitan. Substituting the Cointreau for my Krupnik, I also opted to use some Zubrowka Bison Grass vodka with the aim on contrasting the mellow floral notes with the stronger spice flavours in the liqueur.

Stargazer

25ml Zubrowka Bison Grass Vodka
25ml Homemade Krupnik honey vodka liqueur
25ml Cranberry Juice
15ml Lemon Juice
1 dash Egg white

Shake all ingredients with ice and fine-strain into chilled martini glass. Garnish with an apple fan.

This recipe will work with commercially produced Krupnik, which has less of a spice hit than my homemade variety. If you're using it, garnish with some ground cinnamon and nutmeg; flame them over the drink for effect. I'd probably recommend using less lemon juice, too. The homemade Krupnik is almost syrupy sweet.

*** 

The name comes from the Polish tradition of keeping a vigil for the first star on Christmas Eve, the moment which marks the start of the traditional Christmas feast. It seemed appropriate, given I'd chosen to use two Eastern European products in the cocktail.

Thanks to Craig for hosting this month's MxMo; the fun continues over at TDIF!