Eleven: Spring Orchard

We've just finished putting together a new cocktail program for the Paris bar at work and everytime we take on this kind of exercise, there's a point when someone says "we need x cocktails with this spirit in them," because we're only ever going to have y drinks ready, and y is always a number less than x. But, that thing they say about necessity? It's true. This drink also ended up being a chance to use Galliano. It's one of the those bottles that seems to be on almost every backbar without seeing a lot of use, and it's one that always prompts curiosity whenever I pick it up. The overriding flavour is vanilla, but there are also hints of anise and citrus which makes it an interesting alternative to vanilla-flavoured vodkas.

Spring Orchard

1/8th green apple (muddled)
25ml vodka
12.5ml Galliano
25ml red grape juice
12.5ml lime juice
1 barspoon elderflower cordial

Muddle apple in the base of a shaker. Add the liquids and shake. Fine-strain into a chilled champagne flute and garnish with an apple slice on the rim.

Ten: Winter's End

11:44am on March 20 2009 marks the Vernal Equinox, one of the two points of the year at which the Sun is directly over the Earth's equator. Or the Earth's equator is directly over the Sun, if you want to be picky about it. See, astronomy lessons and everything. The Vernal Equinox marks the end of winter and the start of spring, unless you happen to be in the Southern Hemisphere, in which case it's the end of summer and the start of winter. If you are south of the Equator, I'm so sorry. You've got...ooh, 186 days until this post becomes topical.

And so spring is coming like a badly-driven haulage truck on an icy road, which is cause for much celebration in Northern Europe. Perhaps this will be the year when spring is accompanied with temperatures north of 20°C and bikinis for everyone, but I think that's unlikely. It doesn't mean the occasion shouldn't be marked with some kind of mixed drink.

Winter's End

40ml Amsterdamsche Oude Genever
10ml St. Germain
15ml Noilly Prat Dry Stir all ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with a single mint leaf.

Nine: Flame's Edge

New drinks are weird, intangible things. Sometimes, they can be engineered. Sometimes, they come from little more than an instinct. And sometimes, they just happen. We've been hosting cocktail masterclasses at work for a while now. They've proven to be popular with birthday and hen parties, possibly because it provides a decent excuse for exposing the guest of honour to phenomenal amounts of alcohol. There's a standard format for the session - a champagne cocktail of some description on arrival, followed by a demo of the different ways of making cocktails before getting each member of the group to make their own drink. Depending on the size of the group and how much time we have, I sometimes try to mix up a couple of drinks based on suggestions from the group. Most of the time, it's pretty easy to come up with something that ticks all the boxes. Every once in a while, though, it's a bit tougher.

On Saturday night, they wanted fire.

The problem was that I had totally run out of overproof rum, removing the easy option for fuel. So, I decided to go for Jamie Boudreau's Rubicon - only to discover that the kitchen was out of rosemary.

It was starting to feel like one of those dreams where you turn up to your high school graduation naked, but the idea behind the Rubicon has intrigued me since Jamie posted the recipe. In his words:

The burning Chartreuse also has the benefit of cooking the rosemary, releasing a lot of aroma and allowing the flavors to better permeate the beverage as oils are released. As for the “wow” factor, when you extinguish the flame with the rest of the ingredients, a thick white smoke develops.

I'm pretty certain blue flames come under "wow", too. So, taking the Rubicon as a starting point (after all, there's no going back from this point), here's what we ended up with.

Flame's Edge

An orange
10ml Green Chartreuse
40ml Monkey Shoulder
15ml Lemon Juice
20ml White Creme De Cacao

Strip three long strips of peel from the orange with a channel knife. Place two of the strips in a rocks glass with the Chartreuse, keeping one aside for garnish.

Pour the whisky, lemon juice and Creme de Cacao into a shaker, add ice and prepare to shake. Before you do, light the Chartreuse in the glass with orange zests. Shake the remaining ingredients and strain into the glass, extinguishing the flame. Fill the glass with crushed ice and garnish with the remaining orange zest twist.

Eight: Santa Rosita

Yesterday was National Margarita Day in the US, which is as good a reason as any to play around with a bit of tequila. Edinburgh at the tail-end of February might be some way from ideal Margarita-drinking conditions, but we had a rummage around our pile o' stuff regardless.

Santa Rosita

30ml José Cuervo Tradicional
15ml Cointreau
15ml Rose syrup
60ml lime juice

Rim a martini glass with vanilla sugar. Shake all ingredients with ice and fine-strain into the chilled, rimmed glass.

Seven: Abelinha

Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that a lot of the recipes I post use honey as a sweetening agent in cocktails. It has become something of a hallmark of my recipes, like the guy who always uses sherbet in his drinks, or the guy who can't not use a foam. One of the things I love about honey is its versatility. As with anything, different kinds of honey have different characteristics, from lighter varieties such as Acacia through to darker, more pungently flavoured ones like Manuka. Choosing the right one to complement the other flavours in a drink can be tougher than you think it's going to be.

Honey also has a great heritage - it is, after all, the original sweetener. In Europe, man was using honey to add flavour to food and drink long before sugar cane was discovered. Since then, sugar spread like wildfire, inspiring creativity, commerce - not to mention war, slavery and cruelty on an industrial scale. Honey, on the other hand, stayed sweet.

Abelinha

50ml Cachaca
1 barspoon honey (works better with a lighter variety)
25ml pink grapefruit juice
25ml cranberry juice
25ml pineapple juice

Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into an ice-filled highball. Garnish with a long grapefruit zest.