Negroni Safari

David T. Smith,  drinks writer and sometime contributor to this blog, has just published a new book on the Negroni cocktail. You may wonder how one can fill a book on the subject of one cocktail, but this volume is essentially a collection of variations, from subtle tweaks on the classic form to seasonal variants and radical reinterpretations.

In its basic form the cocktail is a blend of equal parts gin, Campari and red vermouth, and it has enjoyed quite a renaissance over the last decade or so. Generally speaking I take a dim view of people who peddle so-called variations of a drink which in reality are just borrowing a name that people will recognise and perhaps trust—the world is full of “[insert word] Martinis” which in fact contain none of the ingredients of a Martini but are simply served in what is often called a “Martini glass” (more properly a “cocktail glass”). Yet the Negroni is more open to legitimate variation than a Martini because it has more ingredients and each has many varieties—there are legion gins out there, plenty of red vermouths, and even Campari is part of an Italian tradition of bitter, herbal amari.

I developed a taste for Campari while honeymooning in Venice in 2000. A huge Campari sign loomed over the Lido (now gone, I think) and the locals’ aperitif of choice was the “Spritz”, a mixture of Campari, white wine (sometimes sparkling) and fizzy water. The Austrians who ruled the place in the early 19th century started all this, using seltzer water to thin the strong local wine. Nowadays Aperol (sweeter, fruiter, less bitter) has taken over from Campari in the Spritz—Venice is filled with tables of bright orange drinks where they used to be red—and you have to ask specifically for a Campari version, although in fairness it was always acceptable to make it with either, as well as Select Pilla or Cynar, an amaro flavoured with artichoke.

A bright red, bitter drink that's bottled at 25% ABV, Campari was invented in Turin by Gaspare Campari in the early 1800s and his son was responsible for the iconic advertising images that helped promote it through the 19th century and beyond. The recipe is allegedly a closely guarded secret but is said to involve some 60 ingredients. In flavour it comes across as herbal and citric with a bitter finish. Its colour traditionally comes from cochineal, a cactus-boring insect from South America, though in 2007 they replaced this with an artificial colouring.

The Negroni owes its existence to another cocktail, the Americano. By 1862 Gaspare had his own bar, Caffè Campari, in Milan, where he devised a blend of Campari, sweet red vermouth and soda water, calling it a Milano-Torino, after its origins. It later became known as an Americano because of its popularity with tourists. Legend has it that, in 1919, one Count Camillo Negroni went into the Caffè Casoni in Florence and asked the barman, Fosco Scarselli, to beef up his Americano with gin. (Whether at this stage the gin actually replaced the soda, I’m not clear.) This became Negroni’s favourite drink and it took his name. (To give you an idea of the cultural significance of the drink, there is actually an ongoing spat about who invented it, with the contemporary Negroni family insisting that their ancestor Count Pascal Olivier Negroni is the real creator. They even claim that Camillo never existed, though it’s fairly certain he did; the truth about his alleged careers as a cowboy and riverboat gambler are another matter. See www.drinkingcup.net/the-real-count-camillo-negroni for a taste of the vehemence.)

Mr Smith’s book, written with Keli Rivers, includes a range of variants where the role of the Campari is played by other bitter drinks, as well as some long-established concoctions which are essentially Negronis with the gin replaced by another spirit: the Boulevardier, first published in 1927, uses bourbon and the Old Pal, from the same era, uses rye whiskey. I myself have previously experimented and found that it works with tequila, Cognac, rum or Scotch, and similar variants appear here. 

Other versions focus on the fruitiness of Campari and the fact that a Negroni is traditionally served with an orange slice garnish, and add orange, grapefruit or pineapple juices. David also suggests pre-mixing a batch of Negroni and letting it “age”, or trying one of several types of White Negroni, using white vermouth and something like Suze to create an almost colourless version (see also this delightful version made with Luxardo Bitter Bianco).

Inevitably there is a “Royale” version with Champagne (although a Negroni Sbagliato, using Prosecco instead of gin, has been an Italian tradition since the 1980s), a Christmas-oriented Snowball version with Advocaat, even a “float” version with ice cream. But perhaps the strangest is the “clarified” version, where a convention Negroni is mixed with lemon juice and milk—the acid curdles the milk which draws the colour from the drink, so that when you strain it through a cheesecloth or coffee filter you get something that tastes like a Negroni but is a pale straw colour. Whether this is worth the effort only you, gentle reader, can decide.

Negroni will be published by Ryland Peters & Small on 9th March, RRP £7.99

Happiness is a torpedo on the sun deck

While looking for poster imagery that captured the tone of a Candlelight Club party last month to celebrate the golden age of luxury ocean liners, I came across the delightful image above. I found quite a high-res copy, enabling me to zoom in and look at the details. Details such as the drinks tray by the gentleman’s side.

What’s he drinking? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a crazy bottle like that before, with no bottom, but I quickly discovered that it is known as a “torpedo bottle”, or sometimes “Hamilton bottle” after William Hamilton, a purveyor of carbonated drinks who produced many such bottles with his name stamped on them. It was used in the 19th and early 20th centuries to hold soda water and the like, and what you usually read is that the idea was it couldn’t be stood up, forcing you to store it on its side. This keeps the wired cork in contact with the liquid inside, ensuring it does not dry out, shrink and allow the pressure to escape. But I did also wonder whether the domed shape makes for a stronger structure, better able to resist cracking under the pressure inside. After a bit of poking around I found out that in Hamilton’s patent specification of 1809 he does indeed state that this shape of vessel “can be much stronger than or jar of equal weight, made in the usual form”.

While it was obviously possible to make a conventional bottle that could take pressure (such as a Champagne bottle) this required high-quality glass that wasn’t worth using for a soda bottle. (And note that Champagne bottles generally do have a domed bottom too, but the dome goes inwards, enabling you to stand the bottle up.) By the time of the First World War glass-making had improved to the point where this shape was no longer necessary which probably explains why torpedo bottles died out.

I’ve found a couple of references suggesting that these bottles had a particular use on shipboard: because you couldn’t stand them up they couldn’t fall over if the ship pitched. This is appealing, as our picture is indeed on a ship. But this doesn’t make much sense, as a bottle like this on its side would obviously roll straight off a table or shelf, so you’d need to keep them in racks. And if you’re using a rack then it doesn’t make much difference what shape your bottle is.*

The stand that we see the bottle in must have been an inevitable consequence of the bottle design. (Some say that part of the intention of the torpedo design, on the manufacturer’s part, was that once you’d opened it you couldn’t put it down until you’d finished it, but I can’t see that going down well in polite society, and this benefit is not mentioned in Hamilton’s patent notes.) Note that the 1895 patent shown here only claims to have made improvements to the design, so bottle stands had obviously been around for a while already.

Out gent’s torpedo bottle has colourless liquid, probably soda water, and there is a glass of it on the tray. But the other glass contains something orange (or possibly red, given that this image looks as if it may have the colour balance skewed too much towards yellow). It could be an Americano (Campari, red vermouth and soda), although DBS thinks it is probably just Campari and soda.

I have tried to identify the label on the side of the torpedo bottle—an orange disc with a white diagonal stripe—but without success. It may be a figment of the artist’s imagination, but if you come across this logo in real life let me know!

*  There is, of course, the ship’s decanter shape, which flairs to a very wide base, to make it bottom-heavy and stable on a moving ship. As far as I can tell this is the genuine purpose of the design—and it is worth noting that is effectively the opposite of the torpedo design.

Gin and tonic—but not as we know it

For your drinking pleasure: a Hartley Gin Tonica, featuring my own penchant, the addition of Campari

The ceaselessly industrious Mr Smith sent me a copy of his new tome, all about the Spanish style of serving gin and tonic. DBS himself (always a fan of taxonomy) long ago decided that this serve was sufficiently distinct to count as a separate drink, referring to it specifically by the Spanish name gin tonica, and that is indeed the title of his book.

The Spaniards’ love of a G&T apparently started in the Basque country and is now so entrenched that this beverage is considered the national drink. What makes a gin tonica different from a gin and tonic? Essentially, attention to detail. The punter is presented with a range of gins and tonics, which are complemented by elaborate garnishes, all served in extravagant balloon glasses to capture and channel the aromas. Large quantities of high quality ice are vital and the tonic is added as delicately as possible so as not to damage its effervescence (I’ve even heard of someone pouring the tonic down the shaft of a barspoon to try and minimise the loss of bubbles). The whole preparation process can take up to 15 minutes, and the wait is considered part of the experience.

David’s book offers 40 recipes, broken down into Classic, Contemporary, Experimental and Seasonal, starting with simple variations on standard garnishes, such as the Evans which deploys both lemon and lime, the James Bond, where a lime is squeezed into the drink (as described in Dr No), the Pink Gin (with added Angostura bitters), plus general variations made with aged gin or sloe gin.

Here you will also find the Hartley, named, I am honoured to say, after myself. I had mentioned to David that I sometimes like to add a dash of Campari to my G&T, so his version has a teaspoon of Campari and a teaspoon of orange juice (to balance the bitterness with sweetness).

But even the “Classic” section calls for unusual garnishes such as thyme, rosemary, bayleaf and coffee beans. Moreover, the recipes never specify simply “gin”—each one is a precise combination of a particular gin and a particular tonic. Alternative gins are also given, but if you fancied working your way through the recipes it would mean buying a lot of different gins and quite a few different tonics that may prove hard to come by.

Moving into the “Contemporary” section we find more esoteric gins, featuring unusual botanicals or spirit bases made from rye or rice, as well as exotic garnishes, the flavours of which start to take more of a defining role—such as the combination of grapefruit and vanilla pod (which apparent synthesise the impression of chocolate) or infusions of teabags. Also in this section we encounter the addition of other spirits such as Bénédictine, crème de violette or even malt whisky.

Once we get into “Experimental” territory, the only certainty is that there is gin involved in some way (although it may be joined by another spirit or liqueur, such as rum or blue curaçao). Garnishes include lemon sorbet, gummy sweets, rock candy or marmalade, and the tonic itself may be augmented or replaced by lemonade or soda water.

The “Seasonal” section offers recipes that will feel in keeping with different times of year, although the ingredients are not necessarily any less exotic, featuring gins made with spices or actual Christmas puddings and tonics pre-flavoured with cranberries, elderflower, grapefruit and rosemary. The winter recipe adds ginger ale, ginger wine, cinnamon sticks and cloves. There is a Chocolate Gin Tonica (is that a season? Why, I hear you cry, it is every season) made entirely of ingredients you will be outraged to find you never knew existed—gin made with cocoa nibs, coffee and vanilla, a cardamom tonic water and chocolate bitters. Finally, the New Year’s Eve version uses a gin that comes in a Champagne bottle and is served with a little Champagne as well.

As I say, you would have to be a dedicated home mixologist to source all the various gins and tonics specified in these recipes, with the patience to delay your post-work loosener while you hull strawberries and shave ribbons of cucumber. But if you love a G&T and wish to explore all the drink’s nuances, then this inspiring book is for you.

Gin Tonica by David T. Smith is published by Ryland Peters at £7.99.*

* If you follow up both those links you'll see that the image on the Ryland Peters website actually shows a different cover design from the copy I was sent. I wondered if the UK and US editions were different, but on Amazon.com the cover is the same as Amazon.co.uk.

Some Negroni variants

A Mr President cocktail

I like a Negroni (equal parts gin, red vermouth and Campari), and I seem to have this in common with much of the world, as it is on trend these days. (Which is interesting when you consider that it is quite bitter—perhaps we are just getting more sophisticated in our cocktail palates, or perhaps it is the appeal of the vintage/heritage aspect.)

I was therefore intrigued when I later encountered the Boulevardier, which is effectively a Negroni with the gin replaced by bourbon or rye whiskey. It was created by Harry MacElhone, of Harry’s Bar in Paris, for Erskine Gwynne, socialite, nephew of Alfred Vanderbilt and editor of the Boulevardier magazine. It appears in Harry’s book Barflies and Cocktails, published in 1927, where it is given as equal parts bourbon, Campari and red vermouth. (Harry’s earlier ABC of Mixing Cocktails has an Old Pal cocktail that is equal parts Canadian—i.e. rye—whiskey, Campari and dry vermouth, which is a pretty dry drink. Oddly, a cocktail with the same name appears in the 1927 book made with red vermouth.) You often now find the Boulevardier with the whiskey elevated to 1½ parts, though certainly with Redemption Rye or Rittenhouse 100 Proof equal parts is easily enough. I would certainly put this cocktail up there with the Negroni; if you like Campari you should try it, as it is essentially a Manhattan with added Campari. Even with milder Maker’s Mark bourbon I think equal parts works fine, though ramping the bourbon to 1½ is still interesting.

Count Camillo Negroni, alleged inventor of the cocktail of
the same name. However, the contemporary Negroni family
insist that their ancestor Count Pascal Olivier Negroni is the
real creator. See here for the low-down on the spat 

All of which got me wondering what would happen if you tried using other spirits in place of the Negroni’s gin.* What about rum? In Havana’s Prohibition-era glory days as a watering hole many extant cocktails seemed to spawn an equivalent that used rum instead of the original base spirit—the Sloppy Joe’s Cocktails Manual has three “President” cocktails, all essentially a Dry Martini made with rum instead of gin, with a few other bits and pieces thrown in. Sure enough such a thing as a rum Negroni already exists: the Kingston Negroni uses pot still Jamaican rum, while the Mr President uses white Cuban rum (though the proportions are different here: 1¼ shots rum, ¾ shot red vermouth, ½ shot Campari). I’m not entirely convinced about either of these: the white rum is easily smothered by the other ingredients, contributing only a little sugar character; although clean, I find it a bit too sweet. In the dark rum version (I used Myers’s) the rum certainly makes its presence felt, though I suspect that I am ultimately not really a fan of this sort of Jamaican rum with its dry, dusty, woody rasp, and it is debatable here whether this quality compliments the rooty bitterness of the Campari or quarrels with it. I think on balance that this is a successful combo, in that you can certainly taste all the ingredients in the mix, although they seem to be circling each other warily. Compared to the Boulevardier, however, it is definitely less inspired.

A Milano is simply a Negroni made with vodka instead of gin, or an Americano (originally known as a Milano-Torino) made with vodka instead of soda. Ultimately it lacks the complexity of the Negroni or the Boulevardier, as you can’t taste the vodka, even if you bump up the proportions. It is also known as a Negroski. This cocktail need detain us no further.

A Rosita cocktail

Inevitably, where one whisky goes another will follow, and the Scotch Negroni uses blended Scotch instead. I used Famous Grouse and, although I am not generally a fan of Scotch-based cocktails, this one undoubtedly works. The whisky balances against the orangey fruit notes in much the same way as it does in a Blood and Sand (Scotch, orange juice, red vermouth and cherry brandy) and seems to add a chocolatey warmth.

Replacing the gin with Cognac (I tried Courvoisier Exclusif) is surprisingly successful, and quite different from the other variants. The fruitiness rises up, suggesting apples and prunes, and it balances in a very satisfying and complex way, though the overall effect is more a warming autumn drink (I imagine—I’m writing this during a heatwave here in the UK). I also tried it with Calvados and it works too, in the same fruity way, though it lacks the complex spread of flavours that the Cognac offers.

Finally we come to the Rosita, made using reposado tequila (I used Tierra Noble**). Simply replacing the gin with tequila at equal parts, the tequila sits squarely in the mix; the recipe I found gives 1½ parts tequila and although this still works I’m not sure it’s necessary. (The recipe, from Gaz Regan's Bartender's Bible, actually has the vermouth as an even blend of red and dry white; this gives a subtle and quite dry result, though I think I prefer it with just red vermouth.) It’s a fascinating combination, with the petrolly, smokey, herbaceous agave flavours entwining with the bitter, orange notes of the Campari. It works in a similar fashion to the Scotch version, with smoke being present in each case and each a relatively subtle blend compared to the minty, sawmill punch of the rye whiskey version.

Out of all of these, for me the Rosita takes first prize—it’s not just “interesting” but is a cocktail I will definitely come back to—thought the Boulvardier and the Cognac Negroni are definitely worth trying too.

* Of course there is much more you can do to a Negroni than just vary the base spirit. In fact Gaz Regan has written an entire book about it… 

** I was given a couple of samples at a trade show, but I don’t think they ever did sort out distribution in the UK. Which is a shame as it’s a great product.

Sacred Rosehip Cup—a thoroughly English aperitivo

To Primrose Hill last week for the launch of Sacred Rosehip Cup. The Sacred Spirits Company is basically Ian Hart, a thoughtful boffin with a twinkling curiosity, who has built a vacuum still in a room in his house. Dotted about the place are tubs of neutral spirit with various single botanicals macerating in them; when he deems each one ready he puts it into a glass vessel, then uses a big vacuum pump located in a garden shed to lower the pressure in the vessel till the spirit starts to evaporate. No heat is used to cause this evaporation;* the theory behind cold vacuum distilling is that the botanicals don’t get “cooked” and so retain their natural flavour.

Ian’s gin is doing very well for itself and keeps winning all kinds of awards. But he is always looking at ways of applying his concepts to other drinks. He makes a Spiced English Vermouth, intended to partner with his gin for a perfect Martini, and his latest wheeze is the Rosehip Cup, which is actually intended to be a sort of English answer to Campari. Like other aperitivos and vermouths, it is an infusion that is not redistilled, and is bottled at 18% ABV.

The starting point, Ian explains, was to use rosehip for fruitiness, rhubarb for acidity and gentian for bitterness.** They were going to call it a Rhubarb Cup, but the end result does not really taste that rhubarby—so he felt that those who don’t really like rhubarb (and it can be divisive) would be put off, while those who do would be disappointed. Hence the name Rosehip Cup.

The colour of Campari originally came from crushed cochineal beetles but nowadays is artificial. Ian didn’t want to go down the artificial route, however (the ingredients of the Cup are all natural and mostly organic). The rosehip actually made the tincture a pale, pinky-brown rather than the bright red he wanted. He considered cochineal, but then had a stroke of luck: he discovered that red grape skins, which are actually a purple colour and are the source of the colour of red wine, turn bright red in the presence of the acid from the rhubarb. This is where the colour of Sacred Rosehip Cup comes from. Ian has observed that, if you dilute the Cup with soda water, for example, as the acid concentration drops the drink turns purple again.

Ian with his Negroni kit gift pack

The signature serve is the Negroni, undoubtedly the classic Campari drink (equal parts gin, Campari and red vermouth). Ian prescribes the use of his own Spiced English Vermouth—you might say, “well he would,” but he explains that the Rosehip Cup is actually not as bitter as Campari, whereas the Spiced English Vermouth is more bitter than, say, Martini Rosso; and the Rosehip Cup needs this extra bitterness. At the launch I am given one of these Negonis to try (using Sacred gin, of course): it is a light, fruity example of its kind, with a slightly downplayed juniper, as one might expect from a complex gin like Sacred. Perhaps a good, light summer Negroni.

Ian is actually planning to sell a “Negroni kit”, of three 20cl bottles of Sacred Gin, Sacred Rosehip Cup and Sacred Spiced English Vermouth (see photo left). That’s everyone’s Christmas presents sorted, then.

Alternative ways to drink the Rosehip Cup are with Fentiman’s Rose Lemonade or with Prosecco; the latter produces a dry, fruity number, a bit like adding Pimm’s to sparkling wine, if you’ve ever tried that.

Rosehip Cup on the left, Campari on the right

Back home I line up a direct comparison between Campari and the Rosehip Cup. As you can see from the photo, they look pretty much identical. Tasted neat they are similar but Campari has a more citric, floral nose with a steely savouriness, and a hint of cooked peppers, celery, even onion, and maybe some cinnamon. All this is carried through on to the tongue, plus bitterness, obviously, and something woody (perhaps that’s the cascarilla bark).

By comparison the Rosehip Cup, while broadly similar, has a softer and more fruity nose, comforting like rosehip syrup. It is sweeter on the palate, though with bitterness too, and there is something like parma violets in there as well.

A Negroni made with the Rosehip Cup (apologies
for the garnish—I didn't have any oranges)

I don’t have any of the Spiced English Vermouth at home, so I knock up a Negroni using Martini Rosso, and then source some extra bitterness from Peychaud’s Bitters (which I find is more simple heads-down bitter, whereas Angostura has has other aromatic things going on too). The end result is very agreeable, a good showcase for what a fine cocktail the Negroni is, and I find one can dial in all the bitterness one wants using this method.

Sacred Rosehip Cup is £28.50 from www.sacredspiritscompany.com


* Actually the vessel rotates in a warm-water bath, which is simply to keep it at room temperature, otherwise the drop in pressure would cause the temperature to drop dramatically too. Oxley gin is also made using vacuum distillation but they, I believe, allow the temperature to drop to –5 degrees C.

** Campari won’t say what their ingredients are; Ian said he thought the bitterness came from gentian, though I see that whoever wrote the Wikipedia entry believes it contains the bitter-sour fruit chinotto and cascarilla bark, while this person is adamant it contains “quinine, rhubarb, ginseng, orange peels and aromatic herbs”.

A thoroughly Scottish gin

The mysterious box opens to reveal…

I was lucky enough to receive a mysterious package in the post the other day, which turned out to be from the folk at Caorunn, a relatively new gin from Scotland. Quite a bit of effort had gone into the package itself, so I have documented what I believe is known as the “unpack” in tech geek circles in photographs on the right.

I was initially a bit perplexed as to what the thing was handles was, but Mrs H guessed that it was for coring and slicing apples in a single stroke. It seems that just as, in a crowded marketplace, new gins frequently have oddball botanicals, so it also seems de rigeur to specify an unusual garnish, and in this case it is indeed slices of apple—coul blush apple being one of the botanicals.*

The other thing you notice straightaway is the unusual five-sided glass included in the package (not the easiest to drink out of but stylish nonetheless). In fact the bottle itself is subtly pentagonal, and the theme carries on in the five-pointed asterisk that graces the label.

A sticker with a five-pointed star, hiding…

Now at this point a weaker man than I would start to fear that this logo, which is to all intents and purposes a pentagram, heralded witchcraft or paganism—perhaps an overture to lure me on a “fact-finding mission” to the Balmenach Distillery in Cromdale on the Spey where it is made, only to find myself burned in a wicker man by villagers wearing animal masks.

Fortunately there is a more prosaic explanation. In addition to six conventional gin botanicals (juniper, coriander, lemon peel, orange peel, angelica root and cassia bark) Caorunn (pronounced ka-ROON) also features five Scottish botanicals as well, rowan berry, heather, dandelion, bog myrtle and the aforementioned apple). In fact caorunn is the Gaellic name for rowan.** In this respect it is like The Botanist gin, which uses only botanicals found on the island of Islay where it is made (which is not to say, I assume, that the actual botanicals used in the gin are all sourced on Islay). That gin manages to rack up a tally of 31 botanicals (which I had thought was a record, though I gather that Monkey 47 actually has 47), making Caorunn seem a model of Zen-like simplicity with only 11. Although Caorunn technically falls into the category of “London Gin” (the highest EU grade, indicating a high quality spirit, natural botanicals with no artificial flavourings, and no colours or flavours added after distillation), the labelling prefers to refer to it simply as “Scottish gin”.

A collection of intriguing objects

Like The Botanist, Caorunn is made by a whisky distillery, in this case the Balmenach Distillery, owned by the Inver House Group, which also includes Pulteney, Balblair, Knockdu and Speyburn-Glenlivet in its portfolio, and apparently a vodka made at its Airdrie facility too. Balmenach was one of the first distilleries to be sanctioned under the Excise Act of 1823.

The gin was allegedly inspired by the landscape of the Cairngorms in which the distillery is located. It is batch-distilled by hand using an unusual still a bit like a Carterhead, in that the botanicals infuse into the alcohol vapour rather than coming into contact with the liquid spirit. But where the Carterhead has a botanical basket at the top of a column, the Balmenach still has a unique copper “berry chamber” in which the botanicals are spread out on four horizontal trays, to maximise their exposure to the vapour. The spirit is triple distilled from 100% grain and the gin is diluted to 41.8% ABV using spring water that filters down through the Cromdale Hills behind the distillery.

The "berry chamber" with trays for the botanicals

Uncork a bottle of Caorunn and you are met by a soft aroma, a blend of inviting spice with an almost chocolatey warmth, and, higher up, a crisp, aromatic stemminess. I open up some Tanqueray for comparative purposes and it has a stiffer juniper/coriander nose. In a glass, Caorunn definitely has a softer juniper element than traditional gin, with subtle herbal notes and a pronounced fruitiness, which I guess must come from the rowan berries. Where Tanquerary packs a prickly high-note punch, Caorunn is softer and sweeter, almost creamy with berry fruit, aromatic apple notes, and a slightly toasty, biscuity finish.

Those mystical objects in detail. Both the bottle label and the etchings of the highball glass
show sort of Rennie Mackintosh stylised images of the five Scottish botanicals in the gin

I knock up a couple of G&Ts, one with Caorunn and one using Chancery, a fairly traditional own-brand gin from Tesco that is made by Greenalls. Where the Chancery emphasises dry spice the Caorunn at first offers a more pronounced orange element plus delicate, fragrant high notes that do seem something like apple. In any case the apple garnish does go very well.

Even the bottle (viewed here from the underside) is pentagonal

In some ways Caorunn is following the trend of producing gins that have a softer, sweeter character than traditional steely juniper-driven gin, presumably to attract people who do not consider themselves gin drinkers—perhaps because they are not that keen on juniper. Where some, like Bloom or G’Vine (and to a certain extent Adnams) add heavy floral flavours, Caorunn is a subtler, more elusive beast. To get the most out of its understated flavour it might be best consumed just with tonic or neat on the rocks, or in a pretty dry Martini (I try one at my usual 4:1 ratio and the gin is almost being masked by the vermouth).

Yes, the apple corer/slicer does actually work

In a standard Negroni (equal parts gin, red vermouth and Campari) the gin again seems swamped. But on the Caorunn website there is a large number of rather interesting-sounding recommended cocktails, one of which is a Negroni—but made with Aperol instead of Campari. So I make one like this and it does indeed work much better, the gentler flavour of the Aperol allowing the gin to make its presence felt in the form of gentle juniper and some floral notes.

I try another one from the site, called King James II and created by Mal Spence of Blythswood Square Hotel. It involves an interesting blend of the gin, Lillet Blanc, Pernod, elderflower liqueur, grapefruit bitters and gomme syrup. An inspired and imaginative combination in my opinion, with the anise and elderflower fencing in the foreground and the gin’s apple aromatics seemingly floating over the top. This is an interesting example of a Lillet Blanc cocktail where this ingredient really works—most are just using Lillet Blanc because Kina Lillet isn’t made any more, and it never seems to work, presumably because Kina Lillet packed more of a bitter herbal punch than the soft, sweet, orangey modern drink.

A King James II cocktail

Hats off to Caorunn for producing such a thoughtful cocktail list—many spirit brands will post just a perfunctory five or six “cocktails” that turn out to be simply the addition of a mixer. And the couple that I have tried so far do indeed seem to showcase the gin’s gentle subtleties, where many classic gin cocktail recipes might swamp it. 

Experimenting with flavour blends not led by juniper seems to be frightfully modish at the moment (as we discovered on Monday at the Craft Distillers Association gin awards organised by DBS, more of which anon). So even if you are not a Scottish nationalist you might want to give Caorunn a try. At about £25 a bottle it’s not unreasonably priced.

* At the Beefeater 24 global cocktail competition last December I got talking to one of the organisers and I commented that I thought it was a bit odd that these recommended garnishes are invariably one of the botanicals that go into the gin. He looked a bit shocked and said, “When we train bartenders we tell them always to garnish using only botanicals that are in the gin.” But while this will always keep you on fairly safe ground, there is an argument for saying that if the gin does indeed taste better with a bit more of that particular botanical, why not just add more when making the gin? Of course there may well be a difference between the flavour of a fresh ingredient and the flavour it might lend by being macerated in the spirit and then redistilled. But in any case I would have thought that garnishing could be as much an opportunity to investigate flavour combinations (by adding things that are not in the botanical list) as a way of emphasising a flavour that is already in the gin.

** Apparently rowan berries were used in Celtic medicines—as indeed juniper was also considered to have medicinal benefits, and was first used in spirits as a way of preserving those healing powers rather than as a way to flavour the hooch.

Campari Safari!

In my unabashed Campari apology a few posts ago I mentioned that they had stopped using cochineal to colour it. What I hadn't realised was that—as with so many things in modern life—they had also altered the recipe in other ways over the years.

I was very lucky that, while at 69 Colebrooke Row on Monday (surely the bar with the highest ratio of kudos to floorspace in western history) mixology meister Tony Conigliaro gave us a taste of a bottle of the stuff that dates from the 1950s.

The intervening 50 or 60 years has, astonishingly, not harmed it in any way. Tony's first point was you could see the colour was different, but it went far beyond that: much as I like Campari I found that the contemporary stuff (tasted neat) seemed almost crude and ham-fisted compared to the smooth subtlety of the the vintage batch, which had the mellow strength of a vintage port. I could have slid into it like a warm, comforting, luxurious bath, but I was called away to taste other things. So I leave you with this photograph of what is left of its label and the heart-warming period graphics offering an idiot's guide to making a Campari and soda.

Archivists among you might also like to see this snap of a bottle of rum from 1947, also from the back bar of 69 Colebrooke Row.

Campari—an apology

The Negroni cocktail

You may have noticed that Mr Bridgman-Smith does not like Campari. He seldom misses an opportunity (nor invents one completely unwarranted) to remind us of this fact.

So I thought I'd take the opportunity to point out to you, if you didn't already know, what a great liquid Campari is.

I developed a taste for it while honey-mooning in Venice. A huge Campari sign loomed over the Lido (now gone, I hear) and the locals’ aperitif of choice was the “spritz”, a mixture of Campari*, white wine (sometimes sparkling) and fizzy water.The Austrians who ruled the place in the early 19th century started all this, to thin the strong local wine.

Campari, a bright red, bitter drink that's bottled at 25% ABV, was invented in Turin by Gaspare Campari in the early 1800s and his son was responsible for the advertising images (see example below) that helped promote it. The recipe is allegedly a closely guarded secret but is said to involve some 60 ingredients. In flavour it comes across as herbal and citric. Its colour traditionally comes from cochineal, a cactus-boring insect from South America, though I gather that in 2007 they replaced this with an artificial colouring.

The Negroni owes its existence to another cocktail, the Americano. By 1862 Gaspare had his own bar, Caffè Campari, in Milan, where he devised a blend of Campari, sweet red vermouth and soda water, calling it a Milano-Torino, after its origins. It later became known as an Americano because of its popularity with tourists. Legend has it that, in 1919, one Count Camillo Negroni went into the Caffè Casoni in Florence and asked the barman, Fosco Scarselli, to beef up his Americano with gin. (Whether at this stage the gin actually replaced the soda, I’m not clear.) This became Negroni’s favourite drink and it took his name.

1 part gin
1 part Campari
1 part red vermouth (Martini Rosso, Cinzano Rosso, Noilly Prat red or something rare groove like Antica Formula)

Stir the ingredients together over ice.This is conventionally served with a wedge of orange, sometimes joined by a wedge of lemon, or alternatively with a strip of orange or lemon zest. One elaborate variant has you squeeze orange zest over a lit match above the glass: the rind oils flare up and fill the place with a burnt orange aroma.

I’ve found variants where the vermouth is reduced to a ¾ part or the gin to a ⅓ part. Some people add Fée Orange Bitters. It is also sometimes served strained into a Martini glass rather than on the rocks, or you can tone it down with soda water. A popular drink in Italy is the Negroni Sbagliato (a “wrong Negroni”) where sparkling white wine is used instead of the gin (which sounds a lot like the Venetian spritz) or the Negroski, where the gin is replaced by vodka. A Cardinal is a Negroni with the red vermouth replaced by dry white vermouth—a pretty dry drink.

Replacing the gin with bourbon makes a Boulvardier. Using rye whisky gives you an Old Pal, a recipe that appeared in Harry MacElhone's famous ABC of Cocktails in 1922—just three years after the origin story of the Negroni.

Finally, one pleasant way I’ve discovered to enjoy Campari is to add a splash to one’s gin and tonic.

*Actually a Spritz can be made with Aperol, Select Pilla or Cynar, an artichoke-flavoured substance, but I gather that the Campari version is considered the “man’s spritz”. I tried Aperol once and thought it pretty foul, but I haven’t sampled the others.