Leaving the Twentieth Century

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I've been in the process of working up a small cocktail offering for a function we're hosting at Sygn in a couple of months time. There are some obvious choices for it - the event isn't industry-focused so I won't be going too obscure or bleeding edge with anything - but flicking through various menus and recipe books led me to the Twentieth Century cocktail.

Twentieth Century Cocktail

35ml Gin
15ml Lillet Blanc
15ml Crème de Cacao (white)
25ml lemon juice

Shake all ingredients with ice; fine-strain into a chilled martini/coupe. Garnish with a twist of lemon zest.

According to Ted Haigh's Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails, it was named for a train, the 20th Century Limited, that plied the route between Chicago and New York in the near aftermath of Prohibition. Haigh suggests that earliest written record comes from the Café Royal Bar Book of 1937 and that "we now have a firm idea of exactly what Art Deco tastes like."

On a personal level, I found the Twentieth Century profoundly depressing. It's not because it's a bad drink - it certainly isn't - but there's something about the way those four ingredients just sing together that make me wonder if I'm ever going to put together a recipe that comes close.

On paper, it's just four ingredients. In the real, it's exceptional, and that's something to aim for.

Saint-Antoine

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So, I was chilling out at work, doing my thing when I got a phone call from Grant Cunningham at Blavod/Luscious Liquid who said there was someone he'd like me to meet. That person turned out to be Paul Bungener who is the UK brand ambassador for FAIR., the producers of the world's first range of Fair Trade spirits and liqueurs. The range consists of the world's first quinoa based vodka along with a Goji berry liqueur and a coffee liqueur, and while they're available in retail (at Harvey Nichols) they haven't entered the on-trade in Edinburgh yet. Since 2010, FAIR. have been sourcing sustainably farmed ingredients - Bolivian quinoa for the vodka, Tibetan Goji berries and Mexican coffee beans for the liqueurs - and shipping them over to Cognac for distillation. The vodka is distilled once through a two-column continuous still, so it has a more distinct flavour than one that's been through a triple- or quadruple-distillation; there's a pleasant peppery note that comes from the quinoa. The Goji berry liqueur has a phenomenal bright red colour; it has an odd, generic red berry flavour - recalling strawberries and raspberries but not directly emulating them. It seems like an ingredient that would work quite well as a bridge between flavours that don't necessarily overlap.

The coffee liqueur really stood out for me. It's a complete change of pace from better known brands like Kahlua or Illyquore - in comparison, they immediately seemed heavier and more cloying. That's not to say that FAIR Café isn't sweet but it comes across as a much more delicate creature, with notes of fresh espresso mingling with some chocolate and Tiramisu.

Fair Trade is one of those ideas that it's hard not to get behind so it's refreshing to see those principles being applied to distilled beverages. It's also refreshing to see that those principles aren't the only compelling reason to pick one of the products - they're at least as good as anything you'll see on an upmarket backbar; in the case of the Café maybe better.

I was lucky enough that Paul left a sample of the FAIR Café to play with before he moved onto his next appointment. Seeing as this is going up on Bastille Day, combined with the fact that FAIR. is based there, Cognac was definitely in my thoughts.

Sainte-Antoine

35ml Merlet Brothers Blend Cognac
15ml FAIR Café
5ml Fernet Branca
10ml Demerara syrup (Fair Trade, of course.)

Stir all ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a vanilla bean wrapped in an orange zest twist.

(The Bastille - as famously stormed on 14th July 1789 - stood on the Rue Sainte-Antoine.)

Black Daisy

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After an absence of a couple of years, cocktail competition leagues are back with a vengeance in Edinburgh. The newly minted Scottish Society for Professional Bartenders have a four-round league starting later this month, while Tonic's modestly named Champions League (in association with Bacardi Brown-Forman Brands) kicked off last month. So far, we've had two rounds out of seven - there are points for the top five competitors and the best newcomer, with the guy/girl with the most points at the end of it all winning an iPad 2. Round one was Cazadores Tequila; this was my entry which made fourth place.

Black Daisy

50ml Cazadores Añejo
15ml Balsamic Vinegar
10ml dark agave nectar
3 dashes Orange Bitters (I used Fee Brothers.)

Stir all ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a twist of orange zest.

Mirrorball

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So cocktail masterclasses have become a thing. This isn't news but it turns out it's not a passing craze either. Having been hosting them for birthday or hen (US translation: bachelorette) parties and other groups for a couple of years, I've settled into a pretty standard format. Over the course of two hours or so, we'll do three drinks for everyone in the group - everyone gets a chance to make a drink and then we'll spend some time putting together drinks based on suggestions from the group.

The first round of drinks, though, is usually sitting ready for the guests' arrival. It's a nice welcome and it's usually something with a touch of Champagne or Prosecco, just so the group get a sense that it's a special occasion. If I'm honest, it's usually a Bellini.

The Bellini is a fine drink - it's simple, it's tasty, and from a bar-geek's point of view, it's one of the few drinks that we can attribute to a specific person (one Giuseppe Cipriani, who invented it in Harry's American Bar in Venice in the mid-late 1940s). The only thing about the Bellini is that it's, well, kinda boring.

Part of the appeal of a cocktail masterclass is pulling back the curtain on how you actually make cocktails. For the most part, we don't go into any great depth but guests get enough info to be able to start making drinks at home if they wanted to. While the Bellini is a great tasting drink, there's a sense in which it sets the bar at a really low level: put some peach purée in a glass, top it with Prosecco. Once you realise that's all it takes, it's a little disappointing.

So, for the last couple of classes I've done, I've tried a new drink to say hello with. It needed to retain a sparkling wine element and I needed to keep the flavours on fairly common ground - it's a drink that I'm serving to people before I've had a chance to even talk to them, so I had to be confident that it would be a crowd-pleaser.

Spring is just hitting its stride in the UK, so I looked at flavours that embody that sense of freshness and carry a floral connotation. The obvious one was elderflower - so 2009, but still - and one of it's natural partners is pear. I wanted to keep a string British identity, so gin was the logical choice for a base spirit. I wanted to go for something very l
Iight in character, with strong floral notes. The drink works very well with Greenall's BLOOM and Darnley's View, but the best response I got from a masterclass group was when I used Bombay Sapphire. Part of that could be down to pure and simple brand recognition, but part of me thinks that the simplicity of the drink works well with the simplicity of the gin.

(I feel like I should point out that this is all stuff I did at work; we didn't receive any free stock for it and this drink doesn't come under any brand agreements we have in force. The products I've listed are the ones I chose to try out.)

Mirrorball

10ml Bombay Sapphire Gin
10ml Xante
5ml elderflower cordial
1 dash Peychaud's bitters
Prosecco

Stir the first four ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled flute. Top with Prosecco and garnish with a twist of grapefruit zest.

For me, it's a recipe that does exactly what I want it to and the response so far has been really good. One thing stands out - I'm using the Mirrorball in place of the Bellini in my masterclass presentations and despite not having anything peach-flavoured in it, there's one flavour everybody says they get from it.

Peach.