The Negroni - A classic cocktail

Apart from the fact that everyone (except me) seems to love it, there is another good thing about this drink. The Negroni is surely one of the simplest cocktail recipes to remember ever. There is only one rule to remember – it’s equal parts. Equal parts of gin, Campari and sweet vermouth.

Questionable history

There are two popular stories about the origins of the Negroni. The first is that it was invented by General Pascal Olivier Count de Negroni, a Corsican living in France to aid digestion.

The second and more popular story is that the drink was invented at Caffè Casoni, Florence in 1919, when Count Camillo Negroni asked the bartender to make his favourite drink, the Americano with gin in place of the traditional soda.

Wherever it was born, the Negroni has grown up to be a classic cocktail. You can find it just about anywhere, and anyone should be able to make it. Somehow it doesn’t always taste right though, the problem is that if the proportions of the ingredients are even slightly out then it throws the whole drink out of kilter.

Dangerous

Although you are only ending up with what seems like a small drink, don’t be tempted to make it bigger. Bear in mind that this drink contains nothing but high strength alcohol ingredients, and it can be a bit dangerous. It’s not one of those things that make you instantly feel pissed, but it’s a creeper, you’ll think you are fine until you decide to stand up.

The garnish question

The traditional garnish for a Negroni is a lemon twist, which is unusual, because the traditional garnish for just about every other drink that contains Campari is some kind of orange.

I like to use an orange twist, but lemon also works, it’s really up to you.

What to do

I’ve included a dash of orange bitters in this recipe. It’s not part of the classic recipe, but I think that it enhances the flavours of the other ingredients.

1. Prechill a glass.

2. To a mixing glass add plenty of big ice.

3. Add the ingredients to the mixing glass.

4. Stir well and strain into the prechilled glass.

5. Garnish with an orange twist.

Clementiney goodness!

Taking a tip from the Italians, I reckon that you can’t go too far wrong if you start off with an aperitivo, a drink designed to sharpen the appetite for the meal ahead.

There are a few classic aperitivos, with the best known probably being the Negroni. The problem is that I don’t really like Negronis, so I had a bit of a search and play and found something that I really do like.

Created by Paul Mant at Quo Vadis in London this drink has it all. The bitterness of the Campari is balanced out with the sweetness of the simple syrup and the citrusy taste of the orange juice.

Like the Negroni, this drink contains Campari, but that is where the similarity ends. It’s lighter, sweeter, and has effervescence from the sparkling wine.

Notes on ingredients

I like to make this drink with cava, but you could also use champagne or prosecco. Whichever sparkling wine you choose, the most important thing is that it should be as dry as possible. If you are using something a bit sweeter, then you will need to reduce the amount of simple syrup in the recipe.

Mant’s original recipe calls for clementine juice, but if you don’t have any then you can just use the juice from regular oranges. For the sake of presentation, the drink should really be finely strained from the shaker into the glass, but at home I prefer to drink it with the bits of orange still floating around it in.

The recipe

1. Pre chill a rocks glass or champagne flute, and put some big ice into your cocktail shaker.

2. Add everything except for the cava to the shaker and give it a good shake.

3. Finely strain the drink into the chilled glass.

4. Top up the glass with cava, and garnish with a twist of orange zest.

5. Sit back and watch the lovely colour for a few seconds before enjoying the perfect start to your meal.

Welcome to Chartreusey goodness.

I’m naming this drink geographically. County Limerick borders County Tipperary, and this recipe could be said to border The Tipperary cocktail that I posted recently.

The big difference between The Limerick and The Tipeperary is that this is a long drink, topped up with tonic water and served over ice. Apart from that The Limerick is more tart due to the addition of a decent amount of lime juice, and the omission of Maraschino liqueur.

It’s a really refreshing drink to enjoy on a long hot summer afternoon/evening.

Notes on Ingredients

Yellow Chartreuse is slightly sweeter and much lighter and milder than the green variety. For these reasons, it sits well in this drink, which is designed to be a refreshing summery tipple. If you only have green Chartreuse, then use it but be aware that it will make the whole thing taste heavier.

Use any Irish whiskey that you fancy. I normally buy Tullamore Dew, because I think that it has a taste that works well either drunk alone or mixed into a cocktail, and it’s reasonably priced.

If you can find a tonic water that doesn’t contain high fructose corn syrup then use it, it not only tastes better, but also has a hugely reduced amount of calories. Less calories in the tonic means you can spend more of them on the alcohol in a second drink.

Compose a Limerick

1. Half fill a shaker with large chunks of ice.

2. Pour the whiskey, Chartreuse and lime juice into the shaker.

3. Add a couple of dashes of orange bitters, and shake it until frost forms on the outside of the shaker.

4. Put a couple of chunks of medium sized ice into a tall glass and strain the contents of the shaker into it.

5. Fill the glass to the top with tonic water, and garnish by floating a twist of lime peel.

Easier to buy than pronounce.

It’s a drink inspired by multiple sources, by two separate people and the desperation that comes with a lack of ingredients. None of that really matters though, neither does the fact that it doesn’t look overly attractive. What does matter is the taste, which is both complex and beautiful.

It’s a cocktail of few ingredients, the only problem is that one of them might be a bit tricky to find (and pronounce).

Żołądkowa what?

There aren’t many ingredients, but one of them is a bit unusual. Wódka Żołądkowa Gorzka, is a Polish vodka infused with a mix of bitter herbs and honey.

The name literally means ‘a bitter vodka for the stomach’, so called because it was traditionally used as a digestive after meals of heavy Polish cuisine.

You can buy it in the UK and most of Europe, but I don’t know how easy it is to get hold of further afield.

Just a couple of notes

If you don’t have citrus vodka handy, then just omit it. It does add something to the drink, but it will still be lovely without it.

Be careful with the volumes, this is very tasty and very easy to drink, but it’s also pretty strong. Every ingredient in the glass is strong alcohol, and it creeps up on you.

Let’s shake

1. Put a few big chunks of ice into a cocktail glass, and leave them there to chill the glass while you make the drink.

2. Throw a handful of frozen pineapple chunks into a cocktail shaker, as you would normally use ice.

3. Pour equal parts of Żołądkowa Gorzka and Martini Rosso into the shaker, and add a splash of citrus vodka.

4. Shake well, until frost starts to form on the outside of the shaker.

5. Empty the ice out of the cocktail glass, and put a chunk of frozen pineapple into the bottom.

6. Strain the drink into the glass and serve.

I'm a little bit in love with Chartreuse.

What’s not to like about Chartreuse, the taste is unique (and lovely), the colour is beautiful (and natural), the packaging is nice, and the history is amazing.

This green loveliness is great just served neat over ice, but there are also a lot of other things that you can do with it. The official chartreuse website gives some cocktail suggestions, but very strangely it doesn’t list one of the most classic, and one of my favourites.

It’s called the Tipperary and, if you follow the traditional recipe, then it is a simple mixture of Irish whiskey and Chartreuse, with a splash of maraschino liqueur. We are just going to add one additional ingredient and a garnish to the traditional recipe, just because I think they improve on the traditional recipe.

Notes on ingredients

Chartreuse comes in two varieties, green and yellow. The yellow is lighter and milder in taste with a lower alcohol content. This recipe calls for green Chartreuse. I expect that if you use yellow then you will also get something very tasty, but it won’t be a Tipperary, and you would probably want to reduce the amount of whisky in relation to Chartreuse so that you don’t completely overpower the taste.

Despite the fact that Scottish whiskies get a lot more exposure, there are a wide range of really good Irish whiskies out there as well. You could use whatever takes your fancy really, but I like Tullamore Dew in this drink.

Just like in an old fashioned, dilution is quite important in this drink. For that reason, you should make sure that your ice is as clean and pure as possible. If you are using tap water then filter it, if you are using bottled mineral water then pick one with the lowest levels of mineralisation that you can find.

It’s not a long way to Tipperary

1. Stick a big chunk of ice in a cocktail glass to chill it while you are mixing the drink.

2. Pour the whiskey and chartreuse into a mixing glass.

3. Add a splash of maraschino liqueur and a dash of orange bitters.

4. Add some big chunks of ice, and stir for a minute.

5. Add more ice and stir well again, so that the drink gets well chilled and some dilution takes place.

6. Remove the ice from the cocktail glass and strain the drink through a fine strainer into the glass.

7. Garnish by floating a twist of lemon peel.

All that is left all too quickly.

The recipe is simple, the decision to consume far too much of it is simple too. In fact the trickiest thing about this article was deciding where to put it. Is a granissat (liquid granita), food or drink?

However you want to classify it, they are fantastic things on hot summers days. Cold, refreshing, childish (memories of slush puppies), quick and easy to make, and just generally summery.

This granissat de cava has all of the above, plus the added advantage of being nice and alcoholic. I’m currently in Spain, so the recipe calls for cava, but it could just as easily be prosecco, champagne, or any other semi-decent dry sparkling wine.

It’s this simple…

1. Pour the bottle of wine into a shallow metal pan, that will fit into your freezer. The wider and shallower the pan, the faster it will freeze, and metal helps to keep the effervescence of the wine. Freeze it until it is solid, which is probably about 3 hours.

2. While the wine is freezing, finely grate the zest of the lemon and then squeeze the juice out.

3. Take the pan out of the freezer and break up the frozen wine with a fork, it will break up quite easily, but make sure that you scrape the big chunks from around the sides as well.

4. Add the lemon zest and juice, together with the sugar, and give it all a good stir. You can add more sugar if you have a sweet tooth, but now would be the best time to do it.

5. Put it back into the freezer for about another hour, or until it is fairly solid again.

6. That’s it, one granissat de cava. At this point you can either serve it just as it is, or add optional ingredients before serving. A lot of people like to add finely torn mint leaves, but I prefer finely chopped pieces of strawberry.
   However you like it, take it out of the freezer, and break it up with a fork again to form small crystals, add anything you want to and put it into serving glasses.

7. Leave it to stand for a few minutes, so that it melts slightly and consume through a straw!

]]> http://johnonfood.com/drink/granissat-de-cava/feed/ 0 http://johnonfood.com/drink/dry-wet-5050-martinis/ http://johnonfood.com/drink/dry-wet-5050-martinis/#comments Thu, 28 May 2009 11:21:48 +0000 John http://johnonfood.com/?p=628


Olive r twist - the big garnish question.


There are two types of people in the world (or at least the cocktail drinking world).

The first type are martini purists (or do I mean puritans). They believe that the name Martini should never be applied to anything that doesn’t contain a clear grain spirit and dry vermouth, and probably shouldn’t be applied to anything that contains any additional ingredients.

Depending on the level of their purism, they may allow vodka with vermouth to be called a martini, or they may insist on the original gin.

The second type of people are far less precious. They will happily tack the suffix -tini onto just about anything that comes in a cocktail glass. They believe in the appletini, the flirtini and a huge raft of other concoctions.

Then there is me, who finds himself lost adrift somewhere in the middle of these two camps.

I believe that both food dishes and drinks should be named appropriately, and once they have been named then the moniker should let you know pretty much what you are getting. If the term martini (or just -tini) gets applied to anything and everything then how will we ever know what we are really ordering.

On the other hand, one of my favourite drinks in the world is a Breakfast martini, which does contain gin but is totally devoid of vermouth. Like a rose, by any other name this would taste as sweet, but breakfast martini just seems to fit.

Right now though, we are going to stick to the purists way of thinking, so there will be no funkytinis, or additional ingredients here, just the basic and classic dry martini, wet martini, and 50:50 martini.

Notes on ingredients

When you only have two ingredients to worry about, you want to make them as good a quality as you can afford.

Without going stupid, my favourite gin for a martini is Tanqueray, and Noilly Pratt make a great dry vermouth, and for the price Martini (the vermouth brand, rather than the cocktail) is really pretty good as well.

If you don’t feel like being a purist, and if you have some around, then you can add a dash of orange bitters to your martini. I think it adds a lot.

Garnish for all martinis is traditionally either an olive or a twist of lemon. I prefer the lemon, but it’s a personal thing I guess.

Dry Martini

Ingredients

• 6 parts gin of choice
• 1 part dry martini

To garnish

• Lemon twist or a cocktail olive

There is no correct ratio of gin to vermouth in a dry martini. 6 parts of gin to 1 of vermouth is normal, but some people would tell you that it should be made 7:1, or with just a few drops of vermouth shaken or stirred with the ice before the gin is added and then discarded.

1. Prechill a cocktail glass, either by having kept it in the freezer beforehand, or by filling it with ice and letting it stand there while you make the drink.

2. Put some big pieces of ice into a mixing glass, and pour in the gin and vermouth.

3. Stir it well for about a minute.

4. Empty the ice out of your chilled glass, and strain the drink into the glass.

5. Garnish with an olive or a twist, and serve.

Wet Martini

We don’t need to go through all of the above again, because the only thing that changes here is the ratio of the ingredients.

Everyone knows about a dry martini, but personally I don’t like them. I love gin, but I prefer my taste the vermouth in my martini as well, so I prefer a wetter version.

Basically the more vermouth you add, the ‘wetter’ your martini is. A classic wet martini comes in at about 3 parts gin to 1 part vermouth.

50:50 martini

Apparently a favourite drink of Prince Charles, and I like it a lot as well.

Again, the only difference is in the ratio of gin to vermouth, and the name of the drink should pretty much give it away. Use equal amounts of gin and vermouth.

]]> http://johnonfood.com/drink/dry-wet-5050-martinis/feed/ 0 http://johnonfood.com/drink/screwdriver/ http://johnonfood.com/drink/screwdriver/#comments Fri, 15 May 2009 13:24:37 +0000 John http://johnonfood.com/?p=338

Keep it in your toolbox or drinks cabinet.

The Screwdriver…

… or, for anyone not into fancily named drinks, it’s just a regular old vodka and orange. The name comes from the fact that it was (allegedly) invented by American engineers working in the middle east in the 50′s, who slyly added vodka to cans of orange juice, and stirred it with a hand tool rather than a spoon.

Whatever you want to call it, you can’t really consider it to be a cocktail, it’s just a simple mixed drink. Having said that though, it’s really a bloody good mixed drink, which makes it, like the G&T, one of those classics that is eternally popular.

Notes on ingredients

All vodka is not created equal, and in a drink where there is only one other ingredient, you can really taste it. I would recommend Wyborowa, Absolut or Danska as good reasonably priced vodkas for everyday use.

You can either make your own orange juice, or buy it. If you are buying the juice, then make sure that it is 100% juice and not some kind of ‘nectar’ with added sugar.

The choice of clear juice or natural with all of the pulpy bits in it is personal. I like it with bits, but some people don’t.

How to make a Screwdriver

Ingredients

• 1 part Vodka
• 2 parts Orange juice
• Squeeze of fresh lemon juice

To garnish

• Slice of orange

It’s so simple to make, it almost feels patronising to write any instructions.

You can mix the two ingredients in any proportion that you want really, but I personally like to drink it with a ratio of 2:1, two parts of orange juice for every one part of vodka.

I like to add a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, although it’s not traditional.

With such a simple drink, there is really no need to shake, just give it a good stir.

Serve it in a tall glass, over big chunks of ice, and garnish it with a thin slice of orange floating on the top of the drink.

]]> http://johnonfood.com/drink/screwdriver/feed/ 0 http://johnonfood.com/drink/simple-syrup/ http://johnonfood.com/drink/simple-syrup/#comments Mon, 11 May 2009 16:51:48 +0000 John http://johnonfood.com/?p=564

One half of a simple syrup

It’s exactly what the name implies that it is, a syrup that is very simple.

Simple syrup is just sugar and boiling water, stirred together until the sugar dissolves.

A really wide variety of different cocktail recipes call for simple syrup, and if you change the ratio of sugar to water then it can also be used for glazing candied fruit, or for glazing cakes and biscuits.

Personally, I’m not a big fan of sugar glazed anything, but I do like cocktails, so I’m going to stick to a basic ratio of equal amounts of water and sugar. Some people prefer to use either two parts water to one part sugar, or one part sugar to two parts water, you can experiment with these ratios and then stick with whichever you prefer.

When to use it

Simple syrup is most often used in drinks which also contain lemon, lime or grapefruit juice. The idea is that you use the sugary syrup to balance out the bitterness of the citrus fruit.

If you are making a cocktail from a recipe then stick to what the recipe calls for, or if you are making a new drink of your own then the general rule to follow is that you should use the same amount of simple syrup as you do of citrus juice.

Let’s get simple

Ingredients

• 1 part white sugar
• 1 part boiling water

1. Measure your water into a pan and bring it to the boil, then turn it down so that it is just simmering.

2. Measure an equal amount of white sugar.

3. Pour the sugar slowly into the simmering water, stirring as you pour.

4. Continue stirring until the sugar has dissolved completely and the liquid turns clear.

5. Once the syrup is clear, take it off of the heat, and leave it to cool before pouring it into a sealable bottle and put it in the fridge

I’ve been told that simple syrup will keep in the fridge for up to 3 months, but I wouldn’t keep it more than about 2 weeks. It is so quick and easy to make that there is really no reason to make it in vast amounts, so you shouldn’t need to keep it for that long anyway.

Let’s get complex

You don’t have to stick to simple syrup, you can use the same basic recipe for other types of syrup to liven up your drinks.

Replace the white sugar with brown sugar for a more mellow taste. This is great for drinks like the ‘old fashioned’.

Try adding ginger, cinammon, cardamom, or anything else you fancy to the syrup at the same time as you dissolve the sugar. You might want to keep it on the heat for a while longer to let the flavours infuse more.

]]> http://johnonfood.com/drink/simple-syrup/feed/ 3 http://johnonfood.com/drink/tonic-water/ http://johnonfood.com/drink/tonic-water/#comments Wed, 06 May 2009 10:30:16 +0000 John http://johnonfood.com/?p=538

Where would gin be without it?

We’ve done an article on gin, so it seems only fitting to add one about it’s long time companion tonic.

What is it?

Let’s keep this simple, tonic water is a carbonated drink flavoured with quinine. It can contain other flavouring ingredients, but it doesn’t have to.

Quinine is extracted from the bark of the Cinchona tree, and has been traditionally used to treat malaria. The problem is that quinine on it’s own tastes absolutely vile.

Tonic water was created in 1825 when British army officers stationed in India mixed quinine with sugar and water, in an attempt to create a daily drink that would act as a malaria prophylaxis. This still didn’t make it overly palatable, so to counteract the taste they decided to try mixing it with gin. Thus not only was tonic water born, but so was one of the worlds classic mixed drinks, the G&T.

The tonic water available today tastes a world away from what they were drinking in India 190 years ago, for a couple of important reasons.

Firstly, the level of quinine used in modern tonic is much lower than it was back then. This is a good thing because in regular large doses quinine itself is quite toxic.

Tonic is also made with other botanical ingredients. These can be either natural or artificial, depending on the quality of the tonic.

It’s carbonated. I don’t know where the carbonation crept into the history, but in 1825 it wasn’t, and today it is.

Finally, the majority of tonic water you’ll find in the shops today has a large amount of high fructose corn syrup added to it. Those that don’t (the expensive ones) are often sweetened with agave syrup.

What to buy

Supermarket brands

Every supermarket has it’s own brand of tonic water, and at this level they all taste pretty much the same.

They (generally) have two big problems. The first is that they all seem to lose their carbonation very quickly once they are opened, and the second is that they are all hugely calorific due to corn syrup used to sweeten them.

The midrange

In the midrange (at least in Europe), the two big brands are Schwepps and Nordic Mist.

There really isn’t much to choose between them. They are virtually identical in price, Nordic Mist has a slightly stronger taste, but seems to have less carbonation.

Strangely there is one other thing that they seem to have in common, they both (in my experience) hold their carbonation much better when bought in bottles than in cans. I have no idea why that might be, but it is.

and from the sublime …

There are a couple of premium brands of tonic water out there, but you are going to pay more for them, either slightly or horrifically more depending on what country you live in.

It is a sad but very true fact that with tonic water, you really do get what you pay for.

Fever Tree is (according to them) served in six of the top ten restaurants in the world, including El Bulli and The Fat Duck. If it’s good enough for Ferran and Heston, then who are we to argue?

You really can taste the difference between Fever Tree and a cheaper tonic water. It has a much better balance between the sweet and bitter tastes, and has a more herbal flavour.

It is also much lower in calories than Schwepps or the supermarket brands due to the fact that it isn’t full of high fructose corn syrup.

… to the ridiculous

Then there is Q Tonic.

Now, Q Tonic is made from Peruvian quinine and natural agar syrup. I’m sure that it tastes wonderful, but I don’t know. The reason that I don’t know is that where I live, they want €18 for four small bottles of it. It seems to be a lot cheaper in the USA but I live in Europe.

Maybe it’s stupid that I am willing to pay for premium gin, but not for the tonic to go with it, but that just seems like too much money for tonic water. Especially when Fever Tree is so good, and is so much cheaper.

Or you could make it

Although it sounds exotic and tricky, you can pretty easily make your own tonic water.

Check back here for a recipe coming soon.

]]> http://johnonfood.com/drink/tonic-water/feed/ 4 http://johnonfood.com/drink/gin/ http://johnonfood.com/drink/gin/#comments Wed, 29 Apr 2009 18:13:25 +0000 John http://johnonfood.com/?p=518

Gin Lane by William Hogarth

I have to start with an apology.

This article is disturbingly incomplete, and I feel that I have to apologise for the fact that I have not managed to provide you with a complete review of all of the different gins on the market.

It is something that I am planning to rectify as soon as possible, I will sacrifice both my liver and my cashflow in order for you to have all of the most relevant information.

Gin is…

… a clear alcoholic spirit distilled from grain or malt and flavored with juniper berries.

Maybe that is a bit of a simplistic definition, but it is basically correct. All gin has to contain a certain amount of juniper, and traditionally it has always been the most important flavour, but there are also a large number of other botanical ingredients that are infused into the spirit during distillation.

Every brand of gin has its own combination of botanicals, and its own unique flavour.

A bit of history

Although some Italian monks had used juniper as a flavouring in distilled spirits hundreds of years earlier, it was the Dutch who first starting infusing juniper into spirits distilled from fruit in the middle 1500′s.

The first person (probably) to use a spirit distilled from grain and infuse it with Juniper, was a Dutch physician, Franciscus Sylvius, in the 1650′s, and gin as we know it was born.

This ‘genever’(from the French word for juniper) was first sold in pharmacies as a tonic to help just about everything, from kidney ailments to gout.

Despite the fact that it was a Dutch invention, the English took Gin to their hearts, and within a short time it had become the national drink.

What followed were decades of ever increasing gin production, ever falling prices, and an ever more drunk poor population.

By the 1740′s the death rate had risen above the birth rate, due to sterility and infertility caused by excessive gin consumption, and it was estimated that the average Londoner was drinking 14 gallons (64 litres) of gin a year. Children were neglected, daughters sold into prostitution, and babies given gin to drink as a pacifier.

The government tried various ways of curbing societies enthusiasm for gin, and eventually introduced a ‘gin act’ which required anyone wanting to sell ‘Distilled spirituous liquor’ to pay a huge fee for a license.

Since then gin has somehow transformed from the drink of the poor proletariat into something thought of as much more upper class.

(There will be a much more complete history of gin coming in a separate article soon.)

What to drink

Like any other spirit, there are a huge range of different gins on the market today.

Also just like any other spirit, some are great and some are less great. The taste of gin varies hugely, it can be influenced by the type of still that is used, the base that the spirit is distilled from, the method of infusing, and of course the botanical ingredients that are used.

Following is a (continually updated) review of the brands that we love and hate.

Tanqueray

Despite the fact that it is now owned by international drinks giant Diego, Tanqueray has a much longer history. It was first distilled in 1830, and they seem to have learnt quite a lot about making a great gin in the 180 years since then. It’s a classic recipe, and the main botanical ingredients are juniper, coriander, and angelica root.

Tanqueray tastes like I somehow imagine that gin should taste. It’s herby but too much, and you can clearly taste the juniper coming through it.

In my opinion it is possibly the perfect gin for making a good martini, especially the breakfast martini.

Hendricks

Hendricks is a bit unusual, it is infused not just with the more standard botanicals, but also with a goodly amount of cucumber and rose petals.

I love the taste of Hendricks, it starts out with a punchy and slightly bitter alcohol taste, and then that disappears and you are left with a relaxing wave of cool and calming cucumberish flavour.

This gin isn’t herby or botanical tasting at all, it just makes you feel all calm and at inner peace. Perfect made into a G&T on a warm summers afternoon, garnish the drink with a slice of cucumber instead of lime or lemon, and just relax.

Bombay Sapphire

Some people call it ‘the vodka drinker’s gin’, but I don’t see that. It may be slightly lighter and have less of a bitter punch than some other gins, but Bombay Sapphire has a very clear and unique botanical taste of its own.

Bombay Sapphire is made from ten key botanicals: almond, lemon peel, liquorice, juniper berries, orris root, angelica, coriander, cassia, cubeb, and grains of paradise

Maybe my judgement is clouded by sentiment, this was the first ‘premium’ gin that I ever drank, but I think I can see around that, and I still think that for its price Bombay Sapphire is a very good marker against which to compare other premium gins.

My favourite way to drink Bombay Sapphire is just to put it in a classic G&T, together with a splash of lime cordial and a wedge of fresh lime, and let it’s botanicals come through.

Larios

Larios is a Spanish gin. It’s very generic, similar to Beefeater or Gordons, both in price and in quality.

It’s not horrible, but it isn’t going to set your world on fire either. There is no real predominant taste or character here, it just tastes like, well, gin.

]]> http://johnonfood.com/drink/gin/feed/ 0 http://johnonfood.com/drink/breakfast-martini/ http://johnonfood.com/drink/breakfast-martini/#comments Thu, 16 Apr 2009 05:59:49 +0000 John http://johnonfood.com/?p=284 Yes, it's for breakfast (or any other time!)]]>

Ooh, so pretty and Orangey!

Yes, it’s a Martini.

Yes, it’s for breakfast

Actually it doesn’t have to be for breakfast at all. It’s just as good at any other time of the day or night.

It’s almost a real Martini, not just a random concoction with the suffix -tini tacked on the end of its name. It is based around a large portion of gin, but the Dry Vermouth that you would find in a traditional Martini is replaced with Cointreau.

I know that I’m a bit flirtatious with my tastes, but right at this moment I’m going to say that this is easily one of my favourite drinks ever.

It’s all about the ingredients

There are a couple of things that are important to think about with the ingredients in this drink.

The first is that the tanginess and taste of the whole drink is largely down to the quality of the marmalade that you use at the start. All of the flavours of the marmalade are retained and it is the predominant flavour in the drink, so pick one that is tangy and not too sweet. We aren’t making a cake here, so whilst you might get away with ‘generic store value marmalade’ when it is going to be cooked into something, you can’t get away with it in this drink.

The other important ingredient is of course the gin. I’d suggest a decent quality of gin that isn’t too specific or unusual with its botanical ingredients. Something smooth that holds onto the taste of juniper is what you are really looking for. Tanqueray would be perfect.

Cointreau can be substituted for any other triple sec, if that is what you have. Personally I love the taste of Cointreau and think that what it adds to a drink is worth the higher price.

How to make a Breakfast Martini

Ingredients

• 1 spoon orange marmalade
• 2 shots London dry gin
• 3/4 shot Cointreau
• 3/4 shot Freshly squeezed lemon juice

To garnish

• Twist of orange peel

1. Stick a big chunk of ice in a Martini glass to chill it while you are mixing the drink.

2. Put the marmalade together with the gin in the bottom of your shaker and stir them together until the marmalade dissolves.

3. Add the lemon juice and Cointreau to the shaker along with a good amount of large ice chunks.

4. Shake well.

5. Remove the ice from the Martini glass and strain the drink through a find strainer into the glass.

6. Garnish by floating a twist of orange peel in the drink.

]]> http://johnonfood.com/drink/breakfast-martini/feed/ 0 http://johnonfood.com/drink/really-simple-lemonade/ http://johnonfood.com/drink/really-simple-lemonade/#comments Sat, 16 Aug 2008 16:22:28 +0000 John http://johnonfood.com/?p=246

A lovely Lemon, just add 'ade'

No, not the fizzy stuff that comes in a bottle and tastes vaguely chemical.

I’m talking about lemonade actually made with (shock horror) lemons.

My daughter won’t drink anything “with bubbles in it”, not because we try to influence her that way for any kind of health reasons, but simply because she doesn’t like it. I’m not a big fan of many things carbonated either, I’ll drink Coke occasionally, and apart from that it’s really only sparkling wines. Carbonated water is one of my pet hates.

So I was thinking about what else to give Emma for a change instead of water or fruit juice, and here we are with just about the most refreshing thing on the planet (apart from a nice cold beer) on a hot summers day.

It’s got the added bonus of being as quick and easy as it is tasty and refreshing.

How to make Lemonade

Ingredients

• 3 Lemons
• 75g sugar
• 750ml Water

To Serve

• Ice cubes
• Fresh mint leaves

1. Peel and roughly chop the lemons.

2. Put the chopped lemons into a food processor together with the sugar, and blitz it until you have a fairly fine pulp.

3. Put the pulp in a jug and add the water, mix well.

4. Chill it in the fridge overnight

5. Serve with ice and a sprig of fresh mint

You can keep the lemonade in the fridge for two or three days with no problem but, unless you make buckets of it, there is no way that it will last that long.

]]> http://johnonfood.com/drink/really-simple-lemonade/feed/ 5 http://johnonfood.com/drink/zubrowka/ http://johnonfood.com/drink/zubrowka/#comments Tue, 29 Jul 2008 22:03:31 +0000 John http://johnonfood.com/?p=172

Watch out, he's frisky!

Żubrówka – the first challenge is in pronouncing it.

I’ve consumed quite a bit of Żubrówka, and even gone as far as living in its country of origin and marrying one of the citizens. The result of this is that I know how to pronounce the name of not just this drink, but also a wide range of other Polish vodkas and beers, the problem is that when I pronounce them properly in bars in England the bar staff invariably look at me as if I’ve just landed from Mars, and I have to point to where the bottle is.

I’ve just spent far too long staring at the screen and contemplating how to write the word in English so that you would pronouce it correctly when you read it, but I have to admit defeat, I just can’t do it. For anyone who understands phonetics (I don’t), then it’s like this: ʐub’rufka

Right then, now that is out of the way, what is it?

Żubrówka is a Polish vodka distilled from rye and then mixed with a tincture made of Bison Grass (Hierochloe odorata). The herb gives the vodka a distinctive and unique taste, smell and colour. There is a stalk of this grass in every bottle, but its just a decoration and actually gives nothing at all to the drink.


The taste and smell are both fantastic, the colour slightly less so, it does however make it easy to convince naieve friends that it’s called Bison Grass Vodka because they only use grass that the Bison have peed on and that this is where the flavour comes from.

As for the taste, well it’s a little bit herbal, a little bit vanillaish, a lot vodka, and something else difficult to define. I strongly suggest that everyone (who doesn’t dislike vodka) goes and tries some though, because it’s great.

Sadly, if you live in the United States then you aren’t going to be getting the real thing though, because the FDA don’t like Coumarin, a chemical compound found in Bison Grass, so the Poles have formulated a special version just for you where the Coumarin in neutralised and you get artificial colours and flavourings in its place. It might still be great, but I’ve never tried it.

The classic ways to drink it are either neat, or mixed with apple juice.

One pub chain in the UK calls the Żubrówka and apple juice mix a ‘Frisky Bison’. I love the name, but don’t think that their version of the drink is up to much, so here is my own.

Whip up a Frisky Bison

1. Make sure that your Żubrówka is COLD. Keep it in your home freezer, the alcohol content is high enough that it won’t freeze.

2. Mix one part Żubrówka with two parts apple juice.

3. Add a squeeze of lemon juice.

4. Add a slice of fresh apple.

5. Garnish with a cinammon stick (optional, but it does make a big difference to the taste, like the celery in a bloody mary).

That’s it, sit back and enjoy, just try not to think about the bison pee.

]]> http://johnonfood.com/drink/zubrowka/feed/ 6 http://johnonfood.com/drink/carrot-juices/ http://johnonfood.com/drink/carrot-juices/#comments Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:13:46 +0000 John http://johnonfood.com/?p=150 Until relatively recently, I’ve always been less than adventurous when it comes to fruit juice. As a child I drank orange juice, as an older child I added apple juice, and for almost 30 years that was about it.

When I moved to Poland, I found that carrot juice was ubiquitous. In the UK, carrot juice was something to be found only in health food shops and at huge expense. In Poland, every supermarket devoted huge amounts of aisle space to it, and seemingly everyone drank it.

Now, I’m still not a fan of just plain old carrot juice, partially because I’m not in love with the taste, and partially because it just seems somehow too healthfoodish. In Poland though, there isn’t just plain old carrot juice, you can buy it in combination with just about every other fruit that you can think of. Not only did I start to tolerate it, I began to really like it.

At the moment I am living again in England, and just as it has always been, carrot juice being largely the preserve of health food obsessives (and Polish immigrants), has to be bought in shops that specialise in soya milk and costs a fortune. None of this goes a long way towards satisfying my carrot juice desires, so I have resorted to whipping out the old juicer and making my own.

I love the juicer, not only does it provide me with tasty and healthy drinks, but it also amuses my daughter hugely when she pushes the pushy thingy down and watches juice shoot out the side. It also has downsides, it makes the cat go psycho and it’s a complete nightmare to clean.

Anyway, the trauma of washing up isn’t the point, the point is that I’ve been using it quite a lot recently to make different juices, and most of them contain carrots.

Here are a couple of my favourite combinations, together with cheesy cocktailesque names of my own creation.

Berry Healthy

Possibly my favourite combination is equal volume of carrot juice and apple juice, with the addition of either a banana, or a handful of strawberries or raspberries. It’s also important to add a good squeeze of lemon juice, you won’t really notice the taste of it and it will stop the apple juice from oxidising and turning the whole thing a muddy brown colour. Oxidisation won’t affect the taste, but it’s nicer if your fresh juice doesn’t look like pond water.

The Carrot Top (like Ginger hair, gettit?)

This one is made up of carrot, rhubarb, and ginger, with just enough apple added to sweeten it a little. All hard ingredients to give your juicer a proper workout. It’s easy to add too much ginger and overpower all of the other flavours in this drink, so take it easy. Add just a little ginger at a time and taste inbetween. As always when working with apple juice, a squeeze of lemon juice will stop it from oxidizing and turning the whole drink brown.

Stay tuned

I’ll keep on playing with my carrots and my juicer and add more of my favourite mixes as and when I discover them.

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