Saint-Antoine

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.)

Forty Four: Remember Remember

So, November. The long nights are here, forcing a day's worth of warmth into the slivers of daylight that punctuate the week. Winter is most definitely here and there's only one thing to do: blow stuff up. It's funny how we feel it's appropriate to celebrate a failed detonation with fireworks, but if you can't spin festivities out of a treasonous plot then what can you do? After a long evening enrapturing children and scaring pets, there'll come a point when the thing you really want is to be inside with something warm - a nice hot cocoa, perhaps - and if that point happens to coincide with a powerful need for a cocktail, then you'll likely be disappointed. There are some options: a liqueur coffee of some description, a hot toddy, or - if you're still feeling particularly pyrophiliac - a Blue Blazer; but on the whole, the hot cocktail is something of a lost art. It's worth noting that before the advent of refrigeration, mixed drinks would have been served either cold-compounded (whack it in a vessel and give it a stir) or heated, either indirectly (by adding some hot water, for example) or directly (by, say, shoving a red-hot poker from the fireplace into the drink. If you wanted to be all refined, I'm sure there were more subtle ways of doing it).

Of course, making and serving a cocktail hot will usually require some extra equipment. For this week's drink, I went all in and headed toward the much-abused coffee machine at work, though not with the intention of making any coffee. Sure, there's a coffee flavour in the recipe but not everyone's looking for a caffeine rush in a warming, late-night tipple. We don't all wanna get a buzz on.

Remember, Remember

In the base of warmed brandy balloon or coupette, combine:
25ml bourbon (I used Bulleit)
15ml Kahlua (or your choice of coffee liqueur)
1 barspoon maple syrup
25ml hot water

In a milk jug, combine:
50ml half & half (25ml milk and 25ml double cream if you don't prep half & half)
15ml white creme de cacao
10ml Navan vanilla cognac liqueur

Using an espresso machine, steam the mixture until creamy. Layer over the bourbon/Kahlua/maple syrup combination and garnish with a sprinkle of shaved chocolate.

Fourteen: Scotch Fusion

We're going to try something a bit new this week: a brief trip into a confused mind.

The thought goes something like this: we know that the action of shaking with ice affects the liquid in the shaker in a couple of noticeable ways:

• it chills the contents, courtesy of the ice
• it adds dilution to the contents, again thanks to the ice
• the motion thoroughly mixes the liquids within
• it aerates the contents by trapping small bubbles of air within the mixture

The first three effects are also observed with stirred and built drinks, but the fourth is unique to shaken drinks. The first three effects can also be observed in warmed or hot cocktails through the addition of boiling water - a Blue Blazer, for example. Continuing the original thought, would it be possible to create a hot cocktail that is aerated by shaking?

Unfortunately, while ice has the handy properties of reducing temperature while also adding solid matter to aid the physical motion of shaking, there isn't an easy alternative for increasing temperature while adding solid matter. Hot coals, possibly, but I didn't have any handy and there's a possibility of the final drink tasting all carbony. At any rate, I decided to try the same recipe twice - one cold, one hot. Just to see if it's possible.

Cold

25ml Johnnie Walker Black Label
25ml Drambuie
25ml espresso
5ml sugar syrup

Shake with ice and fine-strain into a chilled brandy glass. No garnish.

*** 

The cold version turned out much as expected - a rounded, Scotch twist on an Espresso Martini. For the hot version, I opted to add 40ml of boiling water to add the dilution that would normally come from the ice, and popped the spring from a Hawthorne strainer into the tin as well.

Hot

25ml Johnnie Walker Black Label
25ml Drambuie
25ml espresso
5ml sugar syrup
40ml boiling water

Dry-shake with the spring from a Hawthorne strainer, and strain into a warmed brandy glass. No garnish.

*** 

The hot version turned out, well, weird. It looked the same as the cold one, but the crema formed by shaking the espresso quickly disappeared. The other notable difference was the temperature - it came out of the shaker more towards lukewarm and didn't retain what heat it had for long either. The dissipation of the crema can - I think - be attributed to the difference in temperature (colder temperatures encourage molecules to stay closer together, if my memory of high school chemistry serves) but I think there are steps I could take to preserve a higher temperature - perhaps using a vacuum flask rather than a regular Boston shaker and heating the ingredients beforehand.

There's something here, maybe. Maybe not; but even at a slightly disappointing temperature, the hot version had both striking similarities and dramatic differences to its cold brother. Returning finally to the thought that started this whole diversion, can you create a hot cocktail that is aerated by shaking?

Almost.