Pretty little twirly bits of lemon don’t just make your drinks look funkier, but the oils in the lemon peel float on the top of the drink and impart flavour.

Not just lemons

A lot of people seem to be a bit obsessed with lemon twists as cocktail garnishes, and forget about the rest of the citrus fruits. Whilst lemon twists certainly have their place, it’s not always the best citrus fruit to use, think about the flavours in the drink that you are making and try to match your twist to that.

Why not garnish your G&T with a nice lime twist, or float an orange twist on the top of a screwdriver.

The following techniques will work with any citrus fruit, although the ‘in advance’ way is a bit trickier with larger oranges or grapefruit.

To pith or not to pith?

Yes, it can be a bit bitter, but in my opinion you really do want just a little bit of the pith attached to the skin in your twist.

It gives the whole twist some substance and helps it stay in shape instead of just becoming a floppy mess.

The on the fly method

Take a channel knife or zester, and run it around the fruit until you create the length of twist that you want.

The only thing to remember here is that you should do it over the drink, or over the glass that you are going to serve the drink in, so that the oils that come out of the fruit while you are doing it aren’t wasted.

If you don’t have a channel knife or zester then you can use a vegetable peeler for a very similar result. The only difference is that your spiral will be a bit more rustic looking.

The in advance method

1. Cut both of the ends off of the fruit.

2. Take a spoon (a bar spoon works well, but it can be any) and push it into the centre of the pith until it is about halfway down the fruit. It should slide in easily between the flesh and the skin of the fruit.

3. Work the spoon all of the way around the fruit, using it to seperate the flesh from the skin.

4. Turn your fruit over and repeat the same action with the spoon.

5. Now you should be able to just push the flesh of the fruit out, leaving you with a cylinder of fruit, and an empty loop of skin.

6. Make a cut vertically down one side of the skin loop, so that you are left with one large flat (well, curved) piece of skin.

7. If your fruit has a lot of pith, then flatten the skin out and use a knife to remove some of the pith.

8. Roll the skin up tightly along it’s natural curve, and use a toothpick to hold it in the rolled up cigar shape.

9. Throw it into the bowl of iced water for about 5 minutes, the cold will make it tighten up and retain its shape when you use it in a drink.

10. You can now slice twists off of this roll of skin as and when you need them.

You can keep them in the fridge for a few days, but the longer you keep them the less oil they will give out into your drinks.