The new gin

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.

Mezcal's global village

"You have to remember," says Ron Cooper, "in 1995, there were three liquor companies on the Internet." It goes some way to explaining why he gives his web address as mezcal.com. But we're not here to talk about registering domains in the pre-Bubble era. Ron's been importing a range of single village mezcals since 1995 and they're starting to pop up in the UK. The Del Maguey range now includes eight mezcals, each made in a distinctive, traditional way by the local palenqueros. After a good dozen years of growing, agave - or maguey, as they're known in Oaxaca - plants are harvested and stripped of their leaves. The pinas (hearts) are then roasted in a conical pit over three to five days. Fermentation is left to wild yeasts before the distillation process that varies from village to village. The mezcal made in Chichicapa is run twice through a copper pot still, while in Santa Catarina Minas, the Minero comes out of a clay pot still. It's not only the type of still that changes - Del Maguey's Pechuga is distilled with almonds, fruit and a whole chicken in the still.

Watch What  creates  flavors  in  Mezcal in Lifestyle |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Not all of the range is as unconventional as the Pechuga. The latest addition is Del Maguey Vida. It's based on San Luis del Rio, one of Del Maguey's first single village mezcals, but it's distilled to a slightly friendlier 42%ABV - all of the Del Maguey mezcals are distilled at proof rather than being diluted to bottling strength - and they cut the distillate nearer the tails than the heads. It's reckoned to be a great mezcal for cocktails, which led to some great drinks from some of Edinburgh's best bartenders.

There was a rare bottle of Del Maguey Chichicapa from the first batch imported the US back in the 90s, and aged for 94 days in a Californian wine barrel up for grabs and in the end, it went to Jamie McDonald from the Raconteur for his twist on a Blue Blazer. Second place went to the West Room's Andrew Kearns with a straight-up sour with sage and rhubarb jam while third place was shared between Tonic's Tom Hodgkiss and, uh, me.

Todo Bien Tambien

50ml Del Maguey Vida
15ml Campari
1 barspoon agave nectar
8 mint leaves
the zest of one lemon, in thin strips

Combine the agave nectar, mint and lemon zest strips in the base of a glass with some crushed ice. Fill with crushed ice and add the Campari and mezcal. Mix well with a barspoon. Garnish with a mint sprig wrapped in a lemon zest twist.

*** 

There's often a lot of talk about filtration and purity and technology when it comes to discussing spirits, so it's refreshing to come across a series of products that are so focused on traditional methods of production. There's a tangible difference between the various liquids and it all comes from the particular ways that the palenqueros turn two things - maguey and water - into mezcal. There's a reward for this approach, too - Del Maguey Tobala (made from wild maguey plants; it takes a month to collect enough) was named as a semifinalist in the Tequila, Mezcal & Agave-based category at the 2010 Ultimate Spirits Challenge in New York.

Always Coca Cola?

The Coke Side of Life by Liam Higgins on Flickr.

Robin Williams once said that coke was God's way of telling you that you've got too much money.

Sorry, wrong Coke.

I can't claim it was a New Year's resolution, given I started in February, but the cold, dark and fizzy, the world's #1 soft drink - even in Scotland - is no longer part of my life. I've given up Coca Cola.

The first few weeks were tough. Part of the problem was working in a bar, where the stuff is literally on tap. Sure, you could drink water, just like those parties where you could chat to that girl from your workgroup while those lingerie models are chilling at the next table. But here's the thing: that girl from your workgroup is way cooler than you think she is and probably much healthier for you in the longterm. You'll miss the crazy parties and the exciting stories but you'll skip the crashes and hangovers and tortured, overdeveloped metaphors.

Coke might not be everyone's favourite drink, but it's an icon of Western civilisation. Cutting it out of my life means no more Cuba Libres (which is a shame), no more Long Island Iced Teas (uh, not so much), no more rum-and-Coke-floats (jury's still out) - and for what? I can't say I feel noticeably better physically. It's more about making a choice, and making it stick.

Coke's one of those products that provokes mixed feelings in a bartender. On one hand, it's pretty tasty. On the other, it represents the lowest common denominator; mix a spirit with Coke and you get a Coke-flavoured spirit that you can sell to almost anyone who likes Coke-flavoured things. I always get a pang of regret after discussing the merits of different vodka brands with a customer, only for them to ask for it with Coke, but then some spirits - rums, particularly - sing with it. As a customer, I don't miss Coke that much but as bartender, it's a useful product.

So, after a long relationship - does anyone remember their first Coca Cola? I don't - we've finally broken up. It's one of the classic "it's not you, it's me" scenarios but at least I'm not staring vending machines, wondering if I've made a huge mistake.

Actually, I still do, but these days I can do it without stopping.

The return

Two men enter, one man leaves

By "men", I mean multi-national corporations, and by "enter the Thunderdome", I mean "argue about the future of distilling in the US Virgin Islands" through that most honourable of mediums -  the press release.

It all kicked off with a missive from Diageo North America snappily titled Bacardi, World's Largest Recipient of Public Rum Subsidies, Leads Hidden Campaign to Drive Rum Competitor out of the United States and Destroy the Economy of the U.S. Virgin Islands. It's the kind of title that suggests they're not going to attempt a shocking third-act twist ending. Of course, these kinds of claims can't go unanswered, but Bacardi seem to have come as possibly to not answering while still answering: their response runs to a whole three sentences. They didn't even go for a Governor Schwarzenegger style metatextual comment on their opponent. Shame.

Anyway, let's have a good clean fight. Nothing below the belt, and stay away from the eyes. C'mon, at least try.

[Via Olly Wehring / Just-drinks.com]