These winter cocktails will keep you in high spirits…
THE SNOW MARTINI
Snow Queen Vodka (£28.95, 70cl, www.31dover.com). Mellow and balanced with a faint nose of wheat, it’s silky and creamy with vanilla and spice.
50ml Snow Queen
20ml white creme de cacao
5ml white chocolate liqueur
Dark or white chocolate shavings for the rim
Add lemon juice to the rim of a martini glass, then upside-down place glass in chocolate shavings. Half fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Add all the ingredients, shake vigorously and strain into the chilled martini glass.
DUNNET DONKEY
Holy Grass Vodka (£34, 70cl, www.dunnetbaydistillers.co.uk). A Scottish wheat-based botanical vodka that mixes intriguing herbal and sweet vanilla flavours, it has a delicate, creamy finish and offers plenty of presence in this Caithness twist on the Moscow Mule.
50ml Holy Grass
25ml lemon juice
Ginger ale
Add all the ingredients into a rock glass, fill with ice and top up with ginger ale. Garnish with lemon grass straw and mint sprig.
THE POGUES OLD FASHIONED
The Pogues Irish Whiskey (£29.99, 70cl, www.drink supermarket.com). The Celtic punk band’s signature serve, there’s a bit of bite to this 50/50 blend of Irish grain whiskey aged in bourbon oak casks, and single malt Irish whiskey aged in sherry casks.
50ml The Pogues
1 thick slice orange peel
1 maraschino cherry with stem
1tsp sugar syrup
2-3 drops whisky bitters
Take the orange peel and squeeze it with your fingers. Rub the peel around the insides of a whisky tumbler then place into the glass. Add the cherry, sugar syrup and bitters, along with three ice cubes. Add half of the whiskey and stir for about 10 seconds. Add more ice and the remaining whiskey and stir again for 10-15 seconds. Garnish with lemon peel.
BLACK NEGRONI
Mr Black Cold Press Coffee Liqueur (£30.95, 70cl, www.thewhiskyexchange.com). An Australian liqueur made with grain spirit and Arabica coffee beans, expect authentic espresso aromas, dark chocolate, hazelnut and toffee flavours with a faint bitter note. The backbone for any mocha-infused cocktail, it’s seriously good.
20ml Mr Black
20ml gin
15ml Campari
10ml sweet vermouth
Half fill a mixing glass with ice, add the ingredients and stir slowly. Strain into a rock glass and garnish with a grapefruit twist.
GIN MIMOSA
SERVES 1
As we are in the midst of a ‘gin-naissance’ with the rising popularity of gin, we have the recipe for a romantic breakfast in bed cocktail. The gurus at award-winning Portobello Road Gin firmly believe there is a gin cocktail for every occasion so master blender Jake Burger has concocted this delectable Gin Mimosa.
He recommends pre-preparing the juice and sugar syrup the night before and says: “This is a modern take on the classic Buck’s Fizz that takes no time at all to prepare.”
Portobello Road Gin is available from Tesco, RRP £25.
10ml Portobello Road Gin
5ml sugar syrup
Orange or clementine segments
Top with a sparkling wine such as Cava or Prosecco
Run a good few clementines through a juicer and strain out the bits. If you haven’t got an electric juicer squeeze by hand.
Make a speedy sugar syrup by dissolving two parts sugar into one part boiling water.
Pour the gin into a Champagne flute. Then fill the glass two parts chilled sparkling wine to one part chilled and strained clementine juice.
Stir gently immediately before serving.