Outbound: tulips and headbutts

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The new gin

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The sun is out, the flowers are blooming and Easter has come and gone. Spring has sprung like a beartrap and that means that it's time to add some new things to the backbar. No, really. It's like a spring tradition.

Photo from NOTCOT.com

Among our new treats is Greenall's Bloom, the latest addition to the world of super-premium gin with a less traditional mix of botanicals. In its award-winning, jewel-cut bottle, Bloom combines juniper with pomelo, chamomile and honeysuckle for a rounded, floral flavour. It's another gin that might make a good gin-and-tonic, but really sings in a cocktail.

The emergence of gins like Bloom, Caorunn, Hendrick's, Martin Miller's, Tanqueray No. Ten - I could go on for days, by the way - presents an opportunity to look at classics afresh. They'll make a Martini that's very different to those enjoyed even ten years ago, but there's no particular reason to confine them to white-spirit classics. The new, non-traditional gins arguably are robust enough to use in an Old-Fashioned, or even a Sazerac.

There's a sense in which a twisted classic is the perfect cocktail for Spring. It's the combination of taking something from the past and something from the future and reconfiguring and transforming both.

Elderblossom Sazerac

50ml Bloom
15ml St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur
2 dashes Peychaud's Bitters
1 dash Absinthe

Rinse a chilled martini glass or brandy balloon with Absinthe. Stir the other ingredients with ice and strain into the chilled, absinthe-rinsed glass. Garnish with a lemon zest twist.

The delicate art of the twist

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There's one phrase you can guarantee that you'll hear at a cocktail competition. It's the one that starts, "This drink is a twist on..." The concept of modifying an existing recipe and presenting it as a new drink isn't new - look at the sheer volume of gin/vermouth/bitters recipes in the Savoy Cocktail Book, for example - but there's a point at which we should ask where the boundaries lie.

This question - what constitutes a "twist"? - solidified for me at the Drambuie UK Cocktail Competition last month. I'd managed to sneak through the heat with an original recipe, but I'd be required to present both that drink and a twist on a Rusty Nail in the final. It's not unusual for brands to ask competitors to present a modified version of one of their signature cocktails but the Rusty Nail struck me as one of the most difficult to change.

The problem is its simplicity. It has equal measures of two ingredients - Scotch and Drambuie - stirred and served on the rocks. There's nothing in the recipe that can be pared down or outright removed without changing the nature of the drink. So, if I view those two ingredients as fundamental to my version remaining a Rusty Nail, the only thing I can do is add ingredients.

That created its own problems. Once again, I felt that adding too many ingredients would detract from the simplicity of the original formula. Adding a souring agent didn't seem appropriate, nor did overly lengthening the drink. After sifting through combinations of complementary flavours, I ended up doing very little. I added a measure of apple juice to counteract the thick texture of the Drambuie and flamed a couple of sprays of Absinthe inside the glass to add a striking aroma.

The flipside to the approach I took was that it could be viewed as unadventurous and subsequently wasn't far enough removed from a standard Rusty Nail. Having seen my scores (which is a rarity in competitions) I guess that's the view that the judges took. It's hard to argue with the decision, and I came away knowing what things I need to work on for future competitions, but the question's still there. What constitutes a twist?

The Rust of Ages

30ml Drambuie
20ml blended Scotch whisky
30ml apple juice
10ml Absinthe (in atomiser)

Flamed a couple of sprays of absinthe into a small, chilled cocktail glass. Stir the other ingredients with ice and strain into the absinthe-rinsed glass.