The Pink Lady cocktail

We’re attempting to move house after 31 years in the same place, a mind-boggling process that makes you realise how much stuff you have accumulated since you moved in as a twenty-something, all of whose worldly goods could fit into two loads in a Ford Escort. Apart from anything else, it’s made me consider all the dusty bottles that have accumulated, either at the back of the cupboard in the kitchen or on the shelves in the cellar—the latter tend to be ingredients for specific cocktails at Candlelight Club events of the past.

I know that, historically, if I’ve had a sample bottle of something interesting, I have a habit of not quite finishing it, in the belief that I might someday want to make a comparison between this product and whatever similar liquid I am currently examining. Consequently there are a lot of bottles down there with a centimetre or so of spirit at the bottom. But the Candlelight Club leftovers can sometimes be present in a couple of more or less full bottles, if we managed to misjudge how much stock we needed. We have Bärenjäger honey liqueur, Frangelico hazelnut liqueur and Briottet’s intriguing poppy liqueur—I suspect the latter was for one of our 1920s Shanghai themed events, riffing on an opium den concept…

Another of the Briottet liqueurs I found was their pink grapefruit offering, and it’s this that I’m focusing on today. You can buy this beverage on Amazon easily enough, and there are other grapefruit liqueurs out there too. I had the idea of using it to replace the curaçao/triple sec in a White Lady, to produce something I’m calling a Pink Lady. The classic White Lady has roughly two parts gin to one part triple sec and one part lemon juice, traditionally with some egg white to add a thick, silky texture and a foamy finish, though this is often omitted if you are a vegan, or simply can’t be bothered to separate an egg. Some recipes have slightly more of the liqueur (and Difford’s version keeps equal parts liqueur and lemon juice, but adds some sugar syrup). I found that the Briottet grapefruit liqueur (evidently made from actual grapefruit, judging by its cloudy appearance, rather than essential oils) is a bit subtler than something like Cointreau, so I ended up with 50% more of that than the lemon juice, to keep the grapefruit flavour present, then added a bit more gin so that it wasn’t too sweet.

Pink Lady

2 ½ parts gin (I was using Plymouth)

1 ½ parts grapefruit liqueur

1 part lemon juice

½–1 part egg white (optional: I’ve omitted it in the photo)

Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a strip of grapefruit peel or a slice of grapefruit.

What’s intriguing about this cocktail is that, even though it has liqueur in it, the bitterness of the grapefruit combines with the tartness of the lemon juice and the lean juniper notes of the gin to make something that comes across as, not exactly austere, but quite grown up. It’s full of flavour, but quite sharp. You can imagine a 1930s newshound or private eye propping up the bar with one of these while he considers his current moral dilemma, and it makes a good aperitif, priming the tastebuds for dinner.

I see Giffard and Bols also make grapefruit liqueurs, so there are a few to choose from. I also imagine it will go well with rum—I’m thinking variations on the Papa Doble—and I seem to have combined it in the past with tequila (Mexicans apparently mostly drink their tequila with grapefruit soda).

What do you give the woman who has everything? Her own cocktail

A friend was thinking of ways to mark another friend’s 50th birthday and, being a sterling cove, he decided she needed a cocktail created for her and named in her honour. To which end he approached me. (Yes, it’s the same friend who previously asked me to come up with a cocktail to go with the new Bognor Gothic typeface he had designed.)

To get me started I was given a list of his friend Sarah’s likes and dislikes:

Likes: Vodka, tequila, gin, Champagne/Prosecco, triple sec, fruity flavours

Dislikes: Brandy, whisky, chocolate, creamy drinks

OK, so a Brandy Alexander was out. But the combination of tequila, Champagne and fruit flavours immediately made me think of the Paloma Royale combo I came up with last year. This is a blend of tequila, Champagne and grapefruit juice (inspired by the popular Paloma drink of tequila and grapefruit soda); at the time I felt that it worked fine like that, but I also experimented with adding a sweet/sour element with lime juice and syrup. So I felt sure that you could take this base and tweak it a bit more.

My first port of call was the reference in the list of likes to the orange liqueur triple sec (e.g. Cointreau). Sure enough, adding a little of this worked very well, but it really needed just half a teaspoon (2.5ml). At this level the note of orange is clear, but doesn’t swamp the grapefruit, and the earthiness of the tequila still comes through and you’re aware of the mouthfeel of the sparkling wine too. (I used Prosecco this time.) Judging by the photos it looks as if I used pink grapefruit juice last year and I was using white grapefruit juice this time—which might explain why I previously decided that sweetening wasn’t necessary, whereas this time I had to admit that a smidgeon of added sweetness (i.e. the amount in ½ tsp of Cointreau) was just right. If you have a sweeter tooth you could try pink juice.

Sarah’s Surprise No.1
25ml tequila
40ml grapefruit juice
2.5ml (½ tsp) triple sec (e.g. Cointreau)
100ml Champagne or sparkling wine

Shake the first three ingredients with ice and strain into a flute or Champagne saucer then add the sparkling wine and give a gentle stir.

Adding ginger to the original Paloma Royale works well—but with white
grapefruit juice it does need a hint of sweetness added

As I mention in a footnote of the previous post, I’ve noticed in the past that tequila and ginger go well, and indeed my friend had suggested using ginger to give it an autumnal warmth (Sarah’s birthday is in November). An obvious strategy would be to use a ginger liqueur like The King’s Ginger. But (a) I didn’t have any, and (b) based on my previous experience I was worried about making it too sweet. So instead I decided to try muddling fresh root ginger in the cocktail shaker before adding the tequila and grapefruit juice. This does work for sure, and you can adjust the ginger flavour by how big a slice of ginger you use (about an inch across and ⅛ inch thick is a good starting point). You will probably want to fine-strain this, as mashing up the ginger does fill your shaker with bits of fibrous root.

For me this may well have been fine as it was if I had been using pink grapefruit juice, but since I was on the less sweet white juice this time I had to concede that even for me it needed a hint of sweetness. I did try combining both versions of the cocktail by adding triple sec as well, but this was actually a flavour too far and the whole thing became confused.

In the end I found that ½ tsp maraschino did the trick (and I was not unconscious of the reference to the Papa Doble Daiquiri, a version of the rum-based Daiquiri cocktail that adds maraschino and grapefruit juice, apparently preferred by Ernest Hemingway).

It also occurred to me that if you simply garnished the drink with a maraschino cherry, deployed with a barspoon or teaspoon, then enough of the syrup would be transferred to add the same sweetness as using the liqueur, and sure enough this was the case.

Sarah’s Surprise No.2
25ml tequila
40ml grapefruit juice
Slice of root ginger
2.5ml maraschino, or one maraschino cherry
100ml Champagne or sparkling wine

Muddle the ginger in the base of a cocktail shaker, then add the tequila, grapefruit juice and maraschino if using. Shake with ice and fine-strain into a flute or Champagne saucer, then top with sparkling wine. If using the cherry, add it, then give the drink a gentle stir.

Adding a maraschino cherry, using a teaspoon or bar spoon, brings across enough of the syrup to balance the sweetness

Beefeater 24 global cocktail competition

The 14 hopefuls set up their stations as guests sample the cocktails and make their choices

I was invited to help judge the Beefeater 24 Global Competition last Wednesday evening at the Shoreditch Studios in London. Beefeater had flown in hopeful bartenders from all over the world, vying for the prize of a trip to Japan, and earlier in the day they had encountered challenges measuring all aspects of modern bartending, including food matching. The organisers are looking for more than just the finished drink, judging overall ability to be a host and, unsurprisingly, an understanding of Beefeater 24 and its history and place in the cocktail pantheon. But our role was simply to taste 14 cocktails and choose our favourite.

It’s always interesting to go into a bar, study the menu, try a few drinks and get a clear sense of how this particularly mixologist’s thoughts and palate work. But it’s not often you’ll find yourself confronted with 14 different sensibilities in the same room. Having said that, it was noticeable how much similarity there was in the ingredients. Tim Stones, a B24 ambassador, explained that the contestants were told they had to include tea (Japanese sencha tea and Chinese green tea are ingredients in Beefeater 24). But grapefruit was also common (grapefruit peel is in the botanical mix of the gin too, along with more conventional orange and lemon peel) as was honey and elderflower. Tim mentioned that in the past you would get clear national styles emerging when judging competitions like this, but nowadays bartending is a much more global community and the styles are more homogenised and the standard higher. (Though he did mention that in an early heat one chap presented a simple gin and tonic as his entry—Tim couldn’t decide if he had misunderstood the idea of the competition or if he just had enormous front…)

These were the cocktails on offer:

Mr Burroughs’ Reviver
Nathan O’Neil, United Kingdom
The Mr Burroughs in question turns out to be Beefeater founder James Burroughs and not, as I had hoped, elegant beatnik hallucinatory wordsmith William Burroughs. The cocktail is a variant of the Corpse Reviver No.2, featuring absinthe (but, mercifully, no heroin, peyote, yage, bug powder, the True Black Meat of the Giant Centipede, or any of the other intoxicants that feature in Mr Burroughs’ oeuvre). The absinthe is infused with lapsang souchong tea, and there is also a green tea and sencha tea syrup, aquavit, orgeat and lemon juice. The nose is dominated by lemon, but the palate is more complex, with notes of honey, warming anise and something floral. I liked these elements but I think overall it doesn’t have the righteous balance of a normal Corpse Reviver.

The Trading Company Martini—not much
like a Martini, really

Trading Company Martini
Marko Radičev, Serbia
Named after the East India Trading Company, this drink takes its inspiration from ingredients that were shipped to this country by that goliath of a corporation (James Burroughs’ father was a tea merchant himself, which is where today’s master distiller Desmond Payne got the idea for B24). It has a nose of weak lemon and a palate that is surprisingly light and thin with a citrus peel/tea bitterness. Probably too bitter for many, and not really much like a Martini.

Ginjamboa
Diogo Quinaz, Portugal
The name comes from the main ingredients, gin, fresh ginger and grapefruit (jamboa in Portuguese). The nose is of honey and ginger plus a medicinal note and the palate is very bold but very balanced—sweetness from honey, tartness from citrus, tannin dryness from tea and a fiery finish from ginger. This was one of my favourites, robust and to-the-point but also multi-faceted, with all the ingredients playing their part. Which is what a good cocktail is all about.

The So British
Aurélie Pezet, France
Aurélie uses a special blend of Earl Grey (which she considers quintessentially English) flavoured with lime and grapefruit peel and some sort of purple flower for which she could not think of the English name. There is also elderflower and grapefruit juice in the mix. The drink has a surprising pungence from the elderflower and waxy honey, combined with a refreshing citrus tang. The notes of Earl Grey and elderflower do somehow seen redolent of an English summer, so I can forgive the cheesy name.

Diogo Quinaz with his Ginjamboa

Desert Punch
Alexander Frezza, Italy
Alexander takes his inspiration from the Moroccan tea ceremony, and in particular the punch-style idea of a drink as an evolving group experience rather than a single serving. Moroccan tea is poured from a height into small glasses and the drinker is expected to have several of these. The fresh mint in the pot gradually infuses a bitterness into the tea as is steeps, and the saying goes (if I remember it correctly) that the first glass is as fresh as life, the second as sweet as love and the third as bitter as death. Not sure that third glass is really selling itself to me. This simple cocktail—just gin, tea, citrus and mint—is light and does have a refreshing mint flavour with a bitter finish, though I’m not sure it could hold my interest long enough to make it to that deathly third glass.

Mr Oolong’s Fixer Upper
Hasse Bank Johansen, Nordic
Hasse runs a bar in Aarhus, Denmark’s second city, on the Jutland peninsula, where he is pretty much inventing the market. He takes great delight in introducing mixology to people who may never had tasted a cocktail before. He studied bartending in Japan for a while, where his teacher was actually called Mr Oolong and served them all oolong tea each morning to wake them up from the previous night’s indulgence, so this drink was named in his honour. As Hasse says, it is a Martini-style cocktail, with the gin strongly to the fore, plus a homemade oolong cordial, citric acid and some grapefruit bitters. I admired the restraint, giving the podium to the gin rather than trying to show off, while the other ingredients did a good job of adding just the right amounts of sweetness, sourness and tannic dryness. It’s the sort of drink I would actually order in a bar.

Elletaria
Raphaël Trémérie, Belgium
The name is the Latin for cardamom, and the cocktail also has a green tea syrup, apple and lime. Raphaël had a picnic hamper on display with little phials of the ingredients and his suggestion was that it was something anyone could make, though I doubt most people would want to take this chemistry set with them on a picnic. The drink has a vivid green colour which Raphaël said came from the tea, though it looked rather artificial to me (like Monin’s Green Apple Syrup, which may have been involved). The green tea is pronounced and I liked the appley aromatics, though it’s a bit sweet for me with a confectionary note that would probably put me off from drinking very much of it.

Belgium's entry, Raphaël Trémérie's chemistry-set picnic concept of the Elletaria cocktail

La Bella Donna
Sarah Parniak, Canada
Sarah is proud of her Italian roots, hence the name of this drink, though I’m not entirely clear on what’s particularly Italian about the recipe: sencha tea, liquorice, honey, Lillet Rose, orange blossom water, grapefruit oil and a homemade lemon cordial. It has a light, delicate, evasive flavour, with beeswax headiness of the honey and liquorice coming through and, oddly, a hint of rose (and apparently I’m not the only person to get that), even though there is no rose in it. Perhaps it is the blossom combining with something else. I think Sarah said she created the recipe with flavours that reminded her of time spent with her Italian grandmother, and this light, fresh, aromatic drink, does have teasing ghosts of scent that seem reminiscent of a half-remembered past.

As the judges deliberate, in the background Jamil, with his Japanese teapot,
rustles up a coconut-flavoured Coco Verde

Coco Verde
Jamil El Azem, Austria
Jamil described this as a “gin-based fancy Japanese cocktail”, serving it from an elegant Japanese tea pot, and its ingredients include green tea and sake, but also a syrup made from dried coconut. This is very important to him and he kept emphasising how unusual it was to have coconut in a cocktail these days and how he wanted to rehabilitate it as an ingredient. (I think he had consumed quite a few of his own cocktails by the time I spoke to him…) The coconut is actually quite subtle in the finished drink, with tangy lime juice to the fore and the tea clearly present, plus a mysterious earthy element that might come from the sake, with its distinctive dry, savoury flavour. Jamil seemed rather affronted when I suggested an earthy note, but, as I say, he was three sheets to the wind by this stage. Actually quite a poised drink in some ways but perhaps more “interesting” than moreish.

The 24/7 Cocktail
Gregory Ian Sanderson, Australia
When I asked Greg what his cocktail was all about he began a spiel about how the name comes from the fact that as a barman he likes to entertain 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and my heart began to sink. But he’s a likeable chap who had an unusual twist to his offering. The basic recipe is fairly simple, combining the gin with grapefruit juice, elderflower liqueur and his own tea blend that includes sencha and lapsang souchong (he admits the tea on its own is too strong and bitter to be very nice but is designed to work in the cocktail). But just before he serves it he invites you to roll a die on to a wooden backgammon board on which he has laid out little bowls of six of the dried botanicals from the gin. Next to each bowl is an atomiser containing an extract of that botanical. Depending on which number comes up when you roll, Greg sprays that essence into the air over your drink before handing it to you. It’s an interesting idea to build in an element of randomness like this, and also just the idea that each iteration of a cocktail is designed to vary. For me, liquorice root came up, and the nose of grapefruit and elderflower was joined by a woody note. As if that wasn’t enough, Greg serves his cocktail from a teapot, and encourages you to taste a grapefruit-dipped morsel of duck rillette with your cocktail (which goes remarkably well). On its own, though, the cocktail was nice enough, with an interesting bitter-sweet finish, but perhaps a tad disappointing after all the build-up.

Greg dispenses his B24/7, complete with Dice Man spritz and duck rillette

B.P. Ruby @ 24
Eduard Ondracek, Czech Republic
This raspberry-dominated drink has evolved since its inception, its creator told me. An early version that got him through the heats had mint and crushed ice in it, but then the seasons changed so he removed those elements. The version I tasted had an Earl Grey syrup and, oddly, Maldon sea salt in the gin. On the nose, to me, it seemed to smell of tomato, making me expect a Bloody Mary: whether it is the salt doing this (can you smell salt?), I don’t know. On the palate it is mostly fresh raspberry with a rich texture from egg white. The salt is pronounced and it isn’t revolting, but I’m not sure it’s helping much. I think it would make it hard to drink very much of this cocktail.

B24 Martinez
Alex Chatte, Hong Kong
I think in this cocktail the tea was infused directly into the gin, and the other ingredients include Italian and French dry vermouths, grapefruit bitters and a late-harvest Sauvignon Blanc reduction with honeycomb. (Although representing Hong Kong, Alex comes originally from France, so it’s not surprising that wine should feature in his recipe.) Unusually, Alex invites to you try the drink with a nibble of 74%-cocoa-solid chocolate with Szechuan pepper. On the nose the cocktail is dry and aromatic with notes of honey and lavender, while the palate is sweeter and has that now familiar wax note from honey. With sour and tea-tannin bitter elements, the cocktail avoids being cloying, and in fact is relatively light to match with a heavyweight like chocolate, but it does work in an unexpected way. But if you’re going to spend an evening pummelling your liver with cocktails, it doesn’t seem fair to be encouraged to scoff chocs at the same time!

The Watchman’s Wife
Katrin Reitz, Germany
The watchman in the name is the Beefeater himself, guarding the Tower of London, and the reference to his wife is a nod to what Katrin sees as the floral, more feminine elements in this drink. Apples and pears are muddled with a cardamom syrup, oolong tea, rosewater and lime, but this cocktail is most noticeable for being the only one here that uses tonic water (in this case Thomas Henry, a German brand that is very good but hard to come by in the UK). Given that G&T is doubtless the default way of consuming gin for most people in this country (and probably the world), it is surprising that there aren’t more cocktails based on this combo. Katrin’s drink was masterfully balanced, with apple, pear, tea and rose all slotting into place, but you could also just enjoy it as a G&T, and for that reason I ultimately decided it was my pick of the bunch.

Pandora’s Box
Panagiotis Kanavetas, Greece
In addition to curaçao, lemon juice, agave syrup, peach bitters and citrus tea, this cocktail, unusually, featured milk—which I assume is a reference to the milk that is often added to tea. Its creator told me that the tea is usually served as a tea bag, infusing in the cocktail glass, which must further enhance the reference. I’m sure the name came from a desire to highlight his nation’s mythological tradition, though by the time he served it to me Panagiotis had actually changed it: he said he had realised that most of the things that came out of Pandora’s Box were actually unpleasant, so maybe it wasn’t such a great name… The end result is quite simple, with a big citrus jolt, followed by a sort of lactic mouthfeel, then the drying tannins. But to be honest I think I’d sooner just have a cup of tea.

Canada's Sarah Parniak talks a customer through her La Bella Donna cocktail

In the end I gave my top three as 1) the Watchman’s Wife for combining balanced complexity with straightforward drinkability, 2) the Ginjamboa for much the same reason, being multifaceted but bold enough that you didn’t have to concentrate too hard to get interest out of it, and 3) the So British, again a punchy drink with a subtle aura of English-summer grace notes. I’m pleased to say that the Watchman’s Wife won the public vote, so clearly we were all thinking along similar lines.* And it supports the notion that a good cocktail has to be more than just tricksy, playful or complex—it has to satisfy, the sort of drink you want when you just fancy a drink, a drink you don’t have to think about too hard to enjoy.

* The overall winner of the competition, judged by the organisers, was the UK's Nathan O’Neill.

Pash-ion For Vodka #11 - Smirnoff No:24 Citrus Twist (Orange, Lime & Grapefruit)

I've previously written about Smirnoff's flavoured range, in particular the Black 'n' Blue Vodka. This is another variant based on recipe no. 24 and is flavoured with orange, lime and grapefruit (also known as Citrus Twist).

Own
Nose: Fresh, tart and zesty citrus peel, lemon, grapefruit and orange.
Taste: Smooth with some warmth at the end. Tangy, zesty grapefruit is quite prominent followed by some orange and, to a lesser extent, lime.

Frozen
Quite viscous—the vodka was close to freezing over. The Grapefruit zest completely dominates the flavour to the extent that it risks overpowering the vodka.

Martini
Clean crisp and smooth with very toned-down citrus (grapefruit then orange and lime). In a Martini, this by far the best citrus vodka I have tried.

When a vodka decides to make a flavoured version, lemon or citrus is often the first they turn too—with Absolut, Grey Goose, Belvedere and Ketel One all making a variety. I must say this is certainly one of the more interesting and more genuine (i.e. it does not taste so artificial) and thus is worth seeking out. On its own it may be a bit much but it will add a thing to a vodka cocktail.

For more Vodka Articles click here.

Update from the Lab #2

Update from the Lab #2 – Old Tom and Forbidden Fruit

As promised in the last lab update, I shall be looking at making Old Tom Gin. This is by no means the last word on the subject and I know my fellow drinksmiths at the Institute are keen to look at this in greater depth.

My idea stems from a conversation we had with Tony at 69 Colebrook Row who mentioned that drinks expert David Wondrich suggested creating Old Tom gin by rinsing a glass with Scotch whisky, adding gin and sugar syrup and then using that to make your drink; a cocktail within a cocktail, you might say.

I scaled this up to make half a bottle's worth; I have another experiment coming up where I will need large quantities of Old Tom so being able to produce a substitute will be useful.

I added a small amount of whisky to gin and cane sugar I then gently warmed this until the sugar had dissolved and then cooled, strained and bottled the result.

The Taste: the sugar gives the gin a silky smooth quality (as you may expect) making it much more sippable. The whisky seems to tweak the flavour a little bit and certainly colours the gin a light gold. The juniper still comes through in the middle and at the extreme finish is a flavour akin to violet. This is a sweet gin and does resemble some of the other sweetened Old Tom gins in a basic way. Another work in progress but the work will be fun.

Forbidden Fruit

Not content with telling our lab observers merely about Old Tom gin, I decided to recreate a drink known as the Forbidden Fruit which appears in Louis' mixed Drinks (1906) under "Miscellaneous Drinks" see recipe below:

My first issue was that I had misremembered that the recipe calls for a grapefruit and went out and bought a melon, still we had a nice breakfast and starter for our dinner. Having obtained the right fruit I followed the recipe.

The result was a drink with an interesting temperature range, hot at the top and warm at the bottom. Mrs. B described it as a "serious drink which was also sweet and fruity". It was surprisingly smooth and rather drinkable, even to a non-brandy drinker like Mrs B. The grapefruit oil from the skin of the fruit mixed well with the burnt sugar and brandy and reminded me of a similar effect made from flaming orange, particularly nice (I'm told) over a Negroni.

This drink does involve fire so please make sure you take full safety precautions before making this drink, I used glove and apron and as you can see did it over the sink.