Hello loyal readers. Sorry it's been so long, I've been busy. I'll try to make up for it by sharing with you a few of my recent cocktail exploits.
My sister, a renowned gin fan, was given a bottle of 'The Botanist' Islay Dry Gin for her birthday. While it's obviously a great product, she was at something of a loss to pair it with anything else in cocktails...its peculiar earthy character, with no one botanical coming to the fore, makes it a challenging ingredient to mix with. I tried some and had a think. There's room for some sour notes, but the delicate botanicals could easily be overwhelmed by a dry vermouth or something herbal...I thought perhaps fino sherry would be a good fit. And to garnish, something savoury...pickled garlic perhaps? Worth a try, anyway. It would certainly be different.
So, this first resulted in a sort of Botanist Martini:
50ml 'The Botanist' Islay Dry Gin
25ml Fino sherry
Clove of garlic (I couldn't find pickled garlic in a shop, so I briefly boiled a clove in water and vinegar to take the edge off)
Stir well and strain into a chilled glass.
This makes for a curious but surprisingly normal martini. The sherry allows room for the gin's flavour to remain at the forefront, just adding a bit of balance. The garlic is surprisingly unobtrusive. An olive would be an equally good substitute. Overall, this is a savoury drink that would make for a good, if not especially remarkable aperitif. Perfectly good enough though, and a good showcase for the gin.
Note: Interestingly, it turns out that the 2:1 gin/sherry mix with a lemon twist is the original recipe for the Tuxedo Cocktail, so perhaps this should be a Garlic Tuxedo.
All this excitement led myself and my partner in crime Dominic Sewell to start having mad garlic ideas. Dom suggested muddling the garlic, which I'd initially thought would be too extreme, but we went for it anyway. Then I wondered if orange would also go, since orange bitters is a classic martini ingredient and also goes very well with sherry (in a Sherry Cobbler, for example)...could it possibly work? The answer turned out to be a resounding yes.
Genesis of the Garlic
50ml 'The Botanist' Islay Dry Gin
25ml Fino sherry
Small clove of garlic
Tiny pinch of salt
1 Dash Orange bitters
Olive and orange peel to garnish
This is quite something. The garlic was crushed first, then muddled with the sherry, gin and salt. Both stirred and shaken versions seem to work well, double-strained to remove leftover bits of garlic and served up in a chilled cocktail glass as before. The orange peel was squeezed over the drink, rubbed around the rim of the glass and then placed in the drink along with a single green olive.
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| This was taken prior to the addition of the orange twist. Obviously. |
The flavour is really unlike any other drink I've tried. First, as you bring the glass to your mouth to sip it, you get a strong orange aroma from the peel, then you taste the sherry, gin and garlic in sequence. This drink is best suited as an aperitif; I don't think it would be something you'd want at any other time, but in that role it excels, particularly preceding a meal that used similar flavours. This is really out there, and definitely one worth trying...if you do make it yourself, please leave a comment and let me know your experiences!
More gin excitement to follow soon, I promise. Also, for more frequent (and inane) updates you can now visit my facebook page here, so come and say hello.
