Like most classic cocktails, a French 75 can carry a substitution or two that turns it into something totally different. I’ve explored a fair few alternatives like in this French 1605 version, and I might suggest a great use of a spring or summers afternoon would be to gather a big old ice bucket, a chilled bottle of fizz and whatever assorted bottles of booze you have to hand and work out which your favourite might be.
This version isn’t a recognised one, but simply an experimentation with a new bottle of rum with chilli and chocolate, so you could do the same. The only thing to bear in mind, is if you’re not sure if your substitutions are going to work, just make the one and share it, before deciding to make another. And perhaps another if it works that well.
This Chilli & Chocolate Rum didn’t taste too bad on its own, but if I’m honest, I’m not a lover of drinks being overly spicy, so thought the addition of a bit of vanilla, and some fizz would never be a bad thing. And I was spot on. I’m not sure enough to make this my go-to 75 version, but it certainly wasn’t bad at all.
Gather your ingredients:
1oz Rumbullion
½ oz vanilla syrup
½ oz lemon juice
Prosecco to top
As you’d expect with a French 75, you’ll want to shake the rum, lemon and syrup hard over big handfuls of ice and strain into a champagne flute before topping with your fizz. And then taste before you decide if you’re gonna make another, and perhaps another.
You’ll have spotted by now that I love Advocaat. For me, Advocaat is definitely not just for Christmas, but a bottle that generally sits near the front of the cocktail cabinet.
You’ll also notice that this is a (kind of) 3-ingredient cocktail, which also bumps it up my list of ‘probably going to make again’. And with these particular ingredients, if you’ve got the Advocaat, then I bet you could rustle up the rest.
So go find your Advocaat, gin, and some simple syrup. If you’ve vanilla syrup then it’ll be even better, but if not you could add a drop or two of vanilla essence to your shaker if you have it.
So, it’s easy peasy. I’m just going to get on with it. Fill your shaker full of ice and add:
1.5oz gin
0.25oz Warninks Advocaat
0.5oz vanilla syrup
0.75oz lemon juice
Shake it all hard, strain, enjoy. Easy peasy. Told ya’…
I do love Warninks Advocaat. It’s been a staple in our liquor cabinet since I was a kid. When I was a kid, a lemonade heavy Snowball was always a treat over Christmas. It felt illicit, and grown up. Especially when my Auntie Doll used to dress it with a shiny red glace cherry. Remembering how much I used to love it, I’ve followed the tradition on with my nephews, and they too enjoyed the grown-up treat. Until now, they’re all grown up and more likely to opt for G&T than a snowball, but hey, I still love it.
You’ll have spotted how much I enjoy the much more grown up Champagne Snowball, and I also love it in a Canary Flip and the puddingy Crème Egg Cocktail. There’s even the much more advanced Rhubarb & Custard, but I’m still in search others. Especially easy others. And this Orange Custard Martini is definitely easy peasy.
So, gather your ingredients:
1.5oz Warninks Advocaat
1oz Cognac
0.5oz Grand Marnier
0.5oz vanilla syrup
6 drops vanilla bitters
Add them all to a shaker chock full of ice and shake, shake, shake before straining into a pretty glass to enjoy.
It’s been a while now since I discovered how fabulous many of our kitchen cupboard staples are in a cocktail, and over recent years have included ginger, star anise, cardamom pods, different vinegars, black pepper, and chilli, never mind the sweeter staples like marmalade, jam, and here, lemon curd.
Over lockdown I loved being able to make cocktails with people who hadn’t actually been shopping for cocktail supplies, and now, these are some of my favourite cocktails, with a Breakfast Martini (featuring marmalade) right up there with the best.
Tonight though, I thought I’d expand a little on the simple Gimlet and try this Lemon Curd Gimlet I came across recently. I’ve got previous with lemon curd in a Caribbean Club, which is delicious, so I wasn’t actually risking anything here, although a Gimlet is a classic for a reason.
I have to say I was more than pleasantly impressed! In fact, so much so, that I was gutted to have scraped out the last remnants of my lemon curd to make a couple of good sized portions for the two of us, but left none to make another. Still, don’t they say it’s always best to leave ‘em wanting more? Definitely true on this count. It does mean that next time, I might push the boat out and buy a more superior lemon curd specifically for this purpose of course! After all, now it counts as a cocktail provision, I’m not sure I’ll be wanting to ‘waste’ it on toast hahaha…
To get your own glass of deliciousness, you’ll want a shaker full of ice before adding:
1.5oz gin
1oz lemon juice
0.5oz vanilla syrup
1 heaped tsp lemon curd
Shake it really, really hard to be sure the curd is fully mixed in with the liquids before straining to enjoy!
And of course, those of you thinking ahead and wondering how it might taste with an orange curd, I’m not sure, but I bet that’s a winner too!
This is the second of my taste testing for the Patron Perfectionists competition this year, but in all honesty, I feel like I cheated more than a little on this one.
Normally, I’m quite happy to apply the adjustments required when making drinks from my home bar, but actually the substitution here was just for a simple oversight – I thought I had fresh raspberries, and I didn’t. But by the time I realised that, I’d already measured out the remaining ingredients so just went with it. And by and large, I would advise you to do the same.
Generally, you and I are making cocktails for us to enjoy in the comfort of our own homes, and so we should never feel guilty substituting or adjusting to suit our cupboards, or our taste. But given that there is a vote riding on this, I do feel just a tad guilty after all.
Despite my adjustments, I’m still going to credit Morgana Toro from Artesian Bar with the creation of this Escoffier, because she has created something that many of us can replicate with ease at home.
Gather together:
60ml Patron Anejo
10ml vanilla syrup
5ml crème de peche
4 fresh raspberries
10ml lemon juice
Morgana suggests you start by muddling the raspberries together with the syrup and the lime juice in your shaker, add the remaining ingredients alongside a handful of ice and then ‘throw the drink’. This is where you would pour/throw the contents from one shaker glass to another, adding bubbles to the mix, before straining into your glass over fresh ice.
So although I had all of the ingredients, we had completely forgotten and eaten the raspberries. Of course it changes the taste significantly to leave them out, but it changes the taste slightly less to substitute another red fruit, and I thought I might just add a drop of rhubarb puree to the mix. Instead, it came out in a big gloopy dollop, so I ended up with quite a bit more than 4 rasberries worth of puree, but hey, what’re you going to do? Hard to take a liquid out of a liquid, so we had to run with it, and actually, it was blinking delicious! It was so delicious I wished I’d made more than just the one for each of us, but always better to leave wanting more so the saying goes….
And of the two Perfectionist entries I’ve taste tested so far, this one gets my vote.
More to come in the week/s ahead.
Perhaps I should also share that I wasn’t brave enough to throw my drink, instead opting for the standard shake, and it worked for me. Would I have enjoyed it if I’d attempted to throw it and spilt half of it on my kitchen floor? Definitely not. And again, I remind myself, and of course you, that these are my cocktails, for me and my other half. And as long as I’m enjoying the fruits of my labour, who cares if I’m not following the rules? Definitely not me!
And before I go, I wanted to just beat myself up temporarily about how busy this photo looks. The cocktail pictures I take at home, on my grey slate work surface against that weeks flowers or on the wooden table with the garden as the backdrop are so much more attractive than the 50’s brown melamine work surface of our place in Scotland, and I thought I might brighten them up with some bright and colourful trays. Well so far, I’ve not actually found a backdrop in my Scottish kitchen that I like: they all feel way too busy for me. Of course I love the pictures on my glamorous cocktail trolley with the front garden as the backdrop, so I’ll keep experimenting until I find a kitchen location or backdrop that I’m comfortable with… I hope you’ll stick with me while I do?
Patron, those purveyors of tequila that should be everybody’s first choice, have an annual competition for bartenders extraordinaire to be recognised as Patron Perfectionists. This year I managed to catch it in time to actually participate in the judging. But as usual, given that mine is not a professional bar set up, I’ve had to substitute the occasional ingredient or two. So although I will definitely be submitting a vote, it will only be relative to how ‘home bar friendly’ their entry is.
The first to be put to the test is a Stone Wheel, from Yoann Tarditi of The Lobby Bar.
Apart from actually having all of the ingredients (or as near as damn it), I particularly liked the use of cider as a mixer. If you have all of these ingredients you might be in time to submit your own vote here.
Half fill a cocktail shaker with ice and add everything except the cider:
40ml Patron Reposado
5ml Green Chartreuse
7.5ml vanilla syrup
7.5ml ginger syrup
20ml lime juice
60ml cider
Shake it all hard, strain into a Collins glass full of ice, and top with the cider.
As an amateur cocktailer, I can honestly never be bothered with ingredients in such small volumes like a bit more than a medicine spoon, usually, but I made myself stick to it on this occasion, and actually, I can kind of see that it worked. But in all honesty, this wasn’t a cocktail that knocked my socks off. It was refreshing. And it did have a fair bit of alcohol in it, but it didn’t taste like it.
I’m not sure it will get my vote, but would it get yours?
Not content with. my disappointed results, I’ve slept on it, thought on it all day and I’ve broken my no alcohol midweek rule to make it again… read on for the update at the end :-). Updated picture here.
So, I’m not sure if it’s cocktail snobbery, but I’ve never really fancied a Pornstar Martini; have you? But then on my Pinterest feed, the whole world seemed to be sharing them, so I thought now might be the time to give them a go.
A relative newbie to the cocktail scene, it was created in 2002 by Douglas Ankrah at The Townhouse bar in Knightsbridge. Ankrah first christened the cocktail the Maverick Martini, in a hat tip to a dodgy club in Cape Town, but later changed the name to the Porn Star Martini. I have no idea where my reluctance has come from, because it really does tick a lot of my cocktail pre-requisites: plenty of alcohol, fruit and fizz. Perhaps it is it’s prominence on cheap cocktail bar menus? Or the prevalence of pornstar ready mix? Anyway, let us leave that behind and explore.
First glance gives me a confusing variety of ingredients. Some with pineapple juice. Some with syrup. Some with lemon juice, some with lime. Some with gin, and some with vodka! However, Ankrah’s original recipe is relatively straightforward: Vanilla vodka, passion fruit liqueur, passion fruit puree, and vanilla sugar, all served alongside a shot of chilled champagne. I guess I should’ve just started with the basics, but having no vanilla sugar, I thought I’d mix it up. Perhaps that was my mistake.
This was my ingredients list:
45ml gin
15ml passionfruit liqueur
60ml passion fruit puree
10 ml vanilla syrup
Passion fruit
Prosecco
Honey rum
But before I started there is disagreement over to shake with or without ice. I chose with, and shook the gin, liqueur, puree, syrup and the seeds from half of the passion fruit really hard over a big handful of ice before double straining it into a coupe glass. I was really disappointed that despite a mega shake, I didn’t end up with that beautiful foam that you see in so many of those photo’s. Perhaps I should have shaken without the ice? Disappointment number one.
But then I had taken a component from another recipe which I hoped would add an extra level. After floating a half of a passion fruit in the glass, I heated some honey rum in a spoon before pouring it into the fruit, before setting it alight. Nope. Unsurprisingly, the seeds still in the passionfruit over rode the heated rum, and it just completely failed to light. Ho hum. Disappointment number two.
And then of course I poured a shot of prosecco to go alongside each glass, and took a sip of the Martini. Disappointment number three: I was massively underwhelmed by the taste, which, even though I thought I had a massively sweet tooth, was just sickly and too sweet and cloying.
I sipped the rum from the passion fruit, and felt that the beautiful Burning Barn Honey Rum was lovely, but also spoilt by the passion fruit seeds. Disappointment number four. Oh dear. This really is very disappointing!
And finally, after sipping the prosecco, which is supposed to act as a palate cleanser between sips, I just poured it into the martini, and saw an improvement. I ended up topping my glass up with prosecco before I saw a real improvement and a picture much more like that which I had expected to see.
So in the end, I suspect you might have worked out, I won’t be returning to the Pornstar Martini anytime soon. You may, of course think differently, and if you have a recipe that differs from mine, that might help me change my mind, do let me know. I’m always open to a little more exploration…
But already, I’m thinking, should I try it again with vodka? Not tonight, Josephine.
*24 hours later*
Okay, so I’ve thought about this a ridiculous amount of time in the last 24 hours, and I really needed to try it again. I’m still low on some ingredients, but I’m SO much more happier with this version, although still not a completely happy bunny.
I thought long and hard about to ice or not to ice, and tbh, I just didn’t fancy a warmish cocktail so threw in a chunk of ice for starters. Then I added:
60ml vodka (vanilla vodka is preferred, I don’t have any but…)
60ml passionfruit puree
30ml Passoa (again, I didn’t have Passoa but did have passionfruit liqueur obvs)
1tbsp lime juice
1tbsp vanilla syrup (pimped up from simple syrup to compensate for the vodka)
Then I shook it REALLY really hard and strained into my glass. I was gutted to still not get a lovely foam, but hey, let’s not expect miracles. I’d also given up on the rum in the passion fruit thing and let the drink just stand on its own but if you wanted to fill the passionfruit hull with rum, float it on the top and set it in fire then go for it.
But d’you know what? It is SO much better! It was much more drinkable and actually might make it into my app of ‘cocktails to make again’. So while I think the vodka did matter, I think the lime juice was vital. So much so, that I shall refuse to drink one if it contains gin and lemon…
So now I need you to get your experimentation on, and let me know what YOU think!
From the left: Cherry Fizz, Shirley Temple #1, Twisted espresso tonic
Are you a couple of weeks in to dry January and struggling? Pregnant? Or just looking for a little light alcohol free refreshment? Hopefully I can give you some new ideas here.
You’ll have guessed I’m not much for a mocktail, but I see an increasing number of friends or colleagues opting for the low or no alcohol option; so many that at my cocktail parties I do now have a separate mocktail menu, which just a few short years ago would never have been a thing. I even created a rather magnificent alcohol free version of a bespoke cocktail I created recently.
The Tough Mudder cocktail was to thank my son and his group of friends (‘The Filthy Hobbitses’ for reasons best known only to themselves, although *entirely* appropriate by the end of the event…) for undertaking a gruelling 10 mile course through ice, water, mud and even electric shocks, and raising £1,030 for The Eye Fund charity. Well of course this was brilliant news so I wanted to celebrate and thank them in style, and of course a cocktail felt like a very fitting way to do it, even though I had greeted them at the finish line with a cocktail on that very day as you can see here:
From the left: Sean Head-on, Tim Jackson, Ted Dennett, Drew Bailey, Isabelle Heaton and at the front, Jacob Rowlands.
The Tough Mudder cocktail itself features 1oz hazelnut liqueur, 0.75oz crème de cacoa, 0.75oz simple syrup all shaken hard over ice, then poured over a mountain of coffee granita heaped in a glass, to reflect the mud and ice, and then of course finished off with a cocktail sparkler (yes, they are a thing) to reflect the electricity in their final stage.
The virgin Tough Mudder is also poured over a mountain of coffee granita and finished with a sparkler, but contains 1oz chocolate syrup, 0.75oz almond syrup, and 2oz cream. It is for those with a sweet tooth but it definitely went down just as well as the original at their celebratory cocktail party.
But I suspect that it may be slightly too complicated for all but a special occasion, so here are some others that go down well.
Cherry fizz
Fill a high ball glass with ice. Pour over 3oz cherry juice and top with 3oz ginger ale and stir.
Shirley Temple #1
Fill a tallish glass with ice and pour 1.5oz grenadine over the top. Top with ginger ale but don’t stir. Serve with a straw and sip from the bottom up.
Twisted espresso tonic
Fill a flute with ice cubes and pour over 1oz vanilla or salted caramel syrup. Add tonic water to just below the top and stir. Drizzle 1oz of chilled espresso into the glass and drink with a straw.
And just a word about straws: I tend to use either Hay Straws, which are actually made from the stems of wheat and are of course fully biodegradable in your compost bin once you’ve washed them of any syrup etc. For those occasions when I need a longer straw, I go for stainless steel with a bend in them.
Cocktail Queen 