Oh, hello!

Leap Year

• 60ml gin
• 15ml sweet vermouth
• 15ml grand marnier
• 7.5ml lemon juice

 

Pour the ingredients into an ice-filled cocktail shaker, then STIR! Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist if you’re not lazy like I was tonight.

 

The Leap Year comes from Harry Craddock’s Savoy Cocktail Book. The main man came up with it for 1928′s 29th of February, so this year was the Leap Year cocktail’s 21st birthday.

I've missed the suspects list.

Since Ginuary I’ve been taking it pretty easy, but it’s a leap year and there’s a gin-based cocktail called Leap Year and the 29th of February rolled around and there was nothing I could do. I had to drink a Leap Year on leap day. I wish I was a leapling.

No. 209 gin!

Twitter brings along precious treats every so often, and thanks to Ginuary I started following the tweets from a grand collection of gin brands. One of the most enthusiastic and entertaining of these tweeps is the guy behind @209GinUK (also tweeting on @Distillery209). Thanks to twitter, I was an advocate of No. 209 before I’d even sampled it. Then, thanks to Martin, I actually got the opportunity to sample it, and the bragging rights of having the first bottle of No. 209 in Australia (la la la not listening to debate if there is any). The only sad part was that the bottle arrived, I kid you not, on the 1st of February – one day after Ginuary’s conclusion for the year. I’ve had it sitting quietly on the shelf since then, sealed. Waiting for the right moment.

Well, No. 209 – the right moment was tonight.

I've missed this, too.

It felt so strange to be shaking (oops) up a cocktail after a month of home bar abstinence – so strange, and yet so like coming home.

So wee!

I also finally cracked open the mini bottle of Gran Marnier that I bought back when I did my Ginuary gingredients purchase. Hahahaha, I just checked my gingredients spreadsheet to try to work out why I originally bought it, and what cocktail did I have it listed against? The Leap Year.

It said "stir", you fool!

Here’s where I made a wrong turn and demonstrated that I haven’t retained all the lessons I thought I learnt during Ginuary. One of the many things I learned the hard way was ALWAYS READ THE RECIPE THE WHOLE WAY THROUGH BEFORE BEGINNING. Instead tonight I just threw everything into a shaker and then shook it, because, you know… shaker. Right? Wrong.

I mean, some recipes for the Leap Year say shake. Sure, they do. And I don’t have my own copy of the Savoy Cocktail Book (YET), but I’m pretty confident (back me up?) that Harry Craddock’s recipe says to stir. And if Harry Craddock’s recipe says jump, I want to ask how high, but I won’t, but I’ll still definitely jump. I failed you tonight, Harry Craddock.

Cheers, 29th.

 Please view the surface bubble swirls as a mark of my failure.

Okay, I’m being very dramatic about this, but I’m mostly using it as an excuse to make a second drink, this time stirring it correctly.

New favourite number?

No. 209, you dollface! I’m looking forward to dancing with you some more. Next time, perhaps in a signature 209 G&T? We’ll see about that.

Meanwhile, the Leap Year… classic and tart with a mouthful of orange. Don’t skimp out, triple sec will not do for this guy – not that I even have any triple sec in my home bar, gosh. Leap Year! You are tasty and momentous! See you in four years’ time. Good grief.

Upfront disclaimer: this post is backdated a week. No, I haven’t been in a coma. I’ve been interstate for a wedding and I made the last-minute packing-crazed decision to leave my laptop at home. Regret! Never mind; here we are now.

Tom Collins

• 50ml Old Tom gin
• 30ml lemon juice
• 20ml sugar syrup

 

Stir all ingredients with ice. Strain into a Collins glass filled with ice and top with soda water. Garnish with a citrus slice and a cherry (or, if you are 1806, an incredible strip of lemon).

 

When I knew I would be in Melbourne for the last day of Ginuary, I knew I had to celebrate the finale at 1806. It’s a beautiful cocktail bar in the city; I first visited there with friends a couple of years ago and I accredit its beautiful menu with first piquing my interest in the history of cocktails. When Nick at 1806 suggested he make me a Tom Collins, I couldn’t say no.

Back before I’d even committed to Ginuary, I decided that the Tom Collins would be my drink for the summer of 11/12. It’s a perfect drink for a hot summer day, and when I read up on the history of the Tom Collins, I was completely charmed by the “Have you seen Tom Collins?” exposure hoax of 1874. What larks. Anyway, then Ginuary came along and dashed my summer plans, so it was wonderful to join up with Tom again… carrying smoothly through to the rest of summer, perhaps?

Photos of the Tom Collins prep, plus the rest of my night at 1806, behind the cut. Go on.

Exterior.

The bar is on Exhibition St, towards the top of the city.

A shelf of gin.

1806 has full table service, but as a solo customer, I chose to sit at the bar. Hilariously enough, I found that I’d sat myself directly in front of the gin shelf.

A menu, a history.

The menu is beautiful, with each cocktail listed chronologically by (sometimes estimated) year of creation. There is also a story to accompany each cocktail – some only a line, some a paragraph or two. The Tom Collins gets a whole page.

Old Tom Collins.

1806 puts up a good argument that the name of the cocktail gives away the kind of gin to be used in it.

Gomme on the right.

The guys at 1806 make gomme syrup using gum arabic. I tried a bit of the gomme on its own and not only does it have a different flavour to sugar syrup, but it has a different texture, too. It’s a lot more like agave syrup, if I am to compare it to anything.

Pouring out.

There’s no ice yet, because even the ice at 1806 is exciting.

Ice ice baby.

The ice at 1806 is frozen in big tubs and then broken up and hand carved, avoiding the impurities. You know how when you pop your ice cubes out, there are always opaque bits here and there in it? It’s never perfectly clear. That’s because with every bit of water you freeze, the impurities come together to form these opaque bits. You can’t really get around it when you freeze little bits of water in ice cube trays – but when you freeze big slabs of ice, it makes it a lot easier to chip around the impurities and come away with chunks of ice that are crystal-clear.

They really are quite beautiful to look at, especially when they’re at the bottom of a cocktail glass.

I sure have seen Tom Collins.

I took my time enjoying my Tom Collins at the bar, and watching Nick and his friend behind the bar (I’ve forgotten his name and I feel terrible about this) wielding their weapons and putting together drink after drink for the punters.

The gins of 1806.

Soon enough, my glass was empty and it was time to drink again.

I had to be cheesy and try a Last Word.

Get it? Because Ginuary is ending.

In most recipes you’ll find for the Last Word, equal parts of gin, green chartreuse, maraschino liqueur and lime juice are shaken and strained. Nick bucked this trend and stirred the ingredients instead, for very good reasons that I’ve since forgotten. He noted that stirring instead of shaking would likely produce a different drink, so I’ll have to try this again with the more commonly-advised method of shaking, but then I’ll finish all the bottles of alcohol by stirring this cocktail because it was so delicious that I got a bit emotional. Perhaps that was just because I’d had a few drinks already, but I prefer to think that it was because the drink was TOO good.

Chandeliers adorn the venue.

And finally, because I’d had a few and it’s become a bit of an 1806 tradition for me, I finished the night with a Clover Club. At 1806 the bartenders add a small amount of vermouth to the recipe. Of course, despite watching this like a hawk and interrogating the barman on his methods, I promptly forgot everything.

Write things down, people.

My cocktail boyfriend.

And there we have it.

The end of Ginuary for 2011.

Last drinks.

Thank you to the gents of 1806 for your hospitality on the evening. Thanks to you readers for supporting my overenthusiastic intake of the best spirit. Thank you to my bank account for persevering despite trying times. Speaking of persevering, thank you to my doctor for not confiscating my alcohol after a recent blood test came back showing abnormal liver results, and thanks to my liver for staying strong.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. It’s been quite a ride. I’ve gotten quite comfortable here, so I won’t be going anywhere – but the frequency of posting during months that aren’t Ginuary will most definitely be reduced. I’m exhausted!

And on that note, it’s time for bed. Goodnight, Ginuary.

Right. I’ve been home for two days now and procrastinating the heck out of doing these last two posts, but seeing as today is officially one week after the end of Ginuary, it’s time to get this over and done with. Yes, I am backdating these posts. No, I have no regrets.

Gin & Tonic

• gin
• tonic water
• ice

 

That’s… that’s essentially it, really. Isn’t it? Is there much more to a G&T other than a shot or two of gin, topped up with some tonic water?

Garnish with a lime wedge, traditionally, but if your gin is Hendrick’s, use a cucumber slice or two. If your gin of choice focuses strongly on another botanical, see if you can garnish with that botanical, just for kicks.

 

And there’s my mum, going for a swim in my gin.

I came very close to excluding the ol’ G&T from (this) Ginuary, if only because there are so many other wonderful things out there. But when you’ve spent your whole day madly throwing clothes into suitcases and doing loads of washing and driving to your mother’s house and having to turn around at least twice before you actually make it there… then a G&T is usually the solution to your problem.

Poor little cucumber nub.

I forgot to pack a bunch of other things before heading an hour down the road, but I certainly didn’t forget my bottle of Hendrick’s, or my bottles of Fever Tree Indian tonic water.

Masterchef.

I did, however, forget to bring any cucumber with me, and so had to use a sad little remnant from my mum’s fridge. I tried to be a bit tricky with my presentation. You’ll see very shortly how that goes.

Lovely, right!?

You’ll notice that I haven’t put any ice in the glass. This isn’t a planned attack. This is because I am a nincompoop and it actually has been a hectic day.

I love this bottle but it's such a jerk to pour.

NOT EVEN MEASURING OUT MY SHOTS, LIKE A BOSS.

Cucumber paired with Hendrick’s works so well because of the gin’s use of cucumber as one of its botanicals. Well… it’s kind of a botanical. The cucumber (and Bulgarian rose essence) isn’t added until after the distillation process, which feels a bit like cheating. Is that why the cucumber pairing is so incredible and the essence is so prevalent?

Keyring opener, because clever.

After my panic earlier in the month over trying to find Fever Tree mixers in Brisbane, it’s funny that I almost didn’t end up using them at all during the month.

Would there be this much fizz if I remembered ice?

I had two bottles ready in case I needed them, but 200ml is actually a perfect amount for a G&T. So good.

Presentation fail.

I guess if I’d had ice in the glass, maybe it would have helped to hold the cucumber slices in place OH GET OVER FORGETTING THE ICE ALREADY

HELLO, ICE.

I started taking photos and mum said, “Ice?”

SHE’S NOT EVEN MUCH OF A DRINKER BUT STILL SHE REMEMBERED THE ICE AND I DIDN’T. Look… it’s just going to be a sore point for the rest of my life. The Ice Dilemma.

Of course a healthy amount of ice is a good thing for a G&T, particularly on a hot day.

Please do not drown.

I have to admit (have I said this before?) – it was only just recently that I bothered trying a G&T again, after the tonic made me run screaming for the hills back when I was younger and slightly more foolish. I stayed away for ages, and it was only a couple of months ago that I decided to grow up and order one, with my love of gin well secured (and Ginuary looming). This particular bar served theirs with a twist of cracked black pepper, too. It was delicious and I’ll never look back.

And there we go. The penultimate day of Ginuary, the classic serve of gin. You know what comes next.

Tonight was a special treat just in time for the end of Ginuary – the second coming of Brisbane’s Red Robin Supper Club. A friend discovered RRSC while it was still in its inception stage, so I was lucky enough to go to the first RRSC event back in August 2011. It’s taken this long for round two, but you can’t rush perfection.

Red Robin Lemonade

• 2 parts watermelon juice (strained puree)
• 1 part lemon juice
• 1 part sugar syrup
• 1oz gin

 

Build in a highball glass with a top-up of soda water to taste. Garnish with a lemon wedge.

 

As soon as I heard there was a RRSC event planned for January 29th, I got in touch with the mastermind chef behind Red Robin to ask if he’d be interested in throwing some Ginuary flavour into his menu, in whatever form he so desired. Lucky for me, he was up to the challenge, and this fresh bevvy was absolutely perfect for tonight’s muggy summer evening.

Ginuary Special!

 I was totally chuffed to pick up the drinks menu and see Ginuary Special right up the top. When the waiter came around to ask if I’d like any drinks to start off with, there was no question. I didn’t actually look at the rest of the drinks menu at all throughout the entire evening, though it does appear to have a fine selection of beer, wine and cider.

Perfect accompaniment when trying to select from the many delicious menu items.

After a couple of days of constant summer rain, the sky taps were turned off tonight but the awful Queensland humidity settled in. Tonight’s gin was a gift of fresh watermelon and homemade lemonade (none of that fake fizzy business), just the thing I wanted to be drinking.

Turns out it wasn't just me who wanted to be drinking it.

It was great to look up from my menu decision-making to see everyone making a strong Ginuary effort, too. To be fair, they weren’t doing it for me – they were doing it because gin is the best.

The best thing on the drinks menu.

I miss it. I do.

Red Robin Supper Club is a delightful concept, one of the first “secret” supper clubs to crop up in Brisbane.

The Red Robin Supper Club can pop-up anytime, anywhere. Whether the venue’s an established restaurant, warehouse, park or even a private home, the idea of the Supper Club is simple, to share outstanding food with like-minded people.

Led by local chef, Rory Doyle, The Red Robin Supper Club is a unique dining experience. Whether wild and innovative or rooted in deep tradition, the food of Red Robin is to be enjoyed, talked about and remembered.

Tonight’s menu items were mostly inspired by Rory’s recent USA adventure. With that knowledge I say thank you, Rory, and thank you, America.

I feel like it would be remiss of me to not share the joy of the meals tonight as well.

Decisions to make.

The first RRSC was a set menu with matched drinks, so tonight’s event was certainly an added complication – I had to choose? How could I possibly choose? How could anyone be expected to choose?

Here’s just a sampling of the menu – these were my personal favourites from the evening, though there wasn’t one bad or boring dish among the entire collection.

Fried dill pickles with raspberry aioli, poutine with braised beef short ribs, soft shelled crab tacos, momofuku pork buns.

You know how you hear of people crying over food because it’s so delicious? It always sounded ridiculous to me, but tonight I felt very emotional about the pork buns and the dessert doughnuts. Very emotional. It wasn’t just because of gin, either.

Anyway: we all rolled home to rub our bellies.

The end.

P.S. Follow Red Robin Supper Club on Facebook or twitter if you’re interested.

So many fresh raspberries. What to do with them? Shove most of ‘em in a mixing glass.

Raspberry-Rose Gin Rickey

• 60ml gin
• 30ml sugar syrup
• 30ml lime juice
• 2/3 cup fresh raspberries
• 2-3 dashes rosewater

 

Throw everything into a mixing glass. Let stand 1 hour at room temperature, occasionally stirring and crushing some of berries. Then pour over a collins glass filled 3/4 with crushed ice. Don’t strain!

 

I found this recipe the other night while browsing iPhone app Punchfork with the search term “gin”. Teamed with the fact that I had a fresh punnet of raspberries in my fridge, it was rock and roll time.

Let's get fresh.

I guess I haven’t really done a “leave to soak” recipe before; the original recipe was on a much larger scale, like a punchbowl variety. Don’t care. Scaled back for a solo run. That’s just how I roll.

Seriously, though.

I’m pretty sure that, thanks to Ginuary, I’ve had a lot more exposure to fresh fruits and juices this month than I’ve ever had before. (The same could be said for alcohol, though.)

Freshly squeezed.

I’m forever more going to have mad respect for places that squeeze their own juices, etc.

Soak, my pretties.

So I left this guy sitting on a bench for an hour or so. I came back around the halfway mark to crush some of the berries up and I think I may have given it a bit of a shake before remembering that was AGAINST THE RULES. It’s just become a force of habit with that darn steel shaker. See shaker, must shake.

No straining required!

Berry barricade.

Make sure you use crushed ice for this, because the berries will float (IIIIIIINTERESTINK) until you give them a bit of a stir down. Then they’ll tango with the crushed ice and it’ll be all nice and good.

See?

YUM. Tart and sweet and tasty. Have a bar spoon handy to scoop out the berries left at the bottom, because YUM.

Garnish face.

I garnished with a couple of extra raspberries and a lime wheel, plus an awesome stripy straw. Except now all I can see is a creepy garnish face.

Pre-straw... or post-straw?

The moral of the story is that this is delicious, though you may want to drink it without a straw, or with one of those massive thickshake straws. Or you might want to muddle the berries completely before pouring out. Up to you, man. Do what feels right. Just… drink it.

I couldn’t resist buying a small bottle of Domaine de Canton last time I was at the bottle shop. I’m a sucker for a nice design, what can I say? Finding an opportunity to use it in Ginuary has been a bit of an ordeal, though! Does anyone have any other good suggestions?

Basil Faultless

• 45ml dry gin
• 30ml Domaine de Canton
• 15ml lemon juice
• 3-4 basil leaves
• dash of soda water

 

Shake well with ice (excluding soda water), strain into chilled cocktail glass, add your dash of soda. You know… if you feel like it.

 

I got Mr. Faultless from this post after doing a short search around google for gin and DdC combos. The chance to use the liqueur as well as some basil seemed pretty unmissable, and the name made me grin. Side note – I’m seeing John Cleese live next month. He’s going to be old and bitter and I still don’t care.

A small collection.

I was fortunate enough to get a small sample of Jinn dry gin to take for a test drive. Jinn is a newer Australian gin, made by the same company behind Vodka O. I’m a big fan of Vodka O and when I found out they’d added a gin to their collection, I was super interested. Jinn is made with only three botanicals (the valencia orange peel is easy to identify!) so it’s nice and smooth. I’ll definitely be looking to add it to my collection after today’s performance. Hooray for supporting the Australian industry!

Ginger anticipation.

The DdC (I’m SO lazy) has a crazy ginger kick but it’s also ridiculously sweet. I think it’d be really nice on a hot day with some soda water. I also think it could be used as the ginger syrup in a Winchester…

Double strain, dudes! There are basil chunks in there!

Oh yeah – the recipe doesn’t say to muddle the basil, but I took it as a given. I think it did a good job of taking on the sweetness of the liqueur (okay, the lemon juice also probably had something to do with that).

Fizzzzzzz.

If something isn’t listed amongst the ingredients, then there’s a likelihood I’ll miss it. I have a bad habit (during Ginuary, at least) of settling on something based on the ingredient list alone, without reading the preparation notes until I’m just about to make the drink. This means I’m regularly panicking at the last minute over garnishes, but this also means that where the original recipe omitted soda water from the ingredients and just listed it in the notes, I didn’t have any on hand. I used lemonade, which added a bit more sweetness back into the mix and I’m fairly confident that changed the flavour profiles already dancing in the glass.

Oh, Mr Faultless. Can I call you Basil?

Never mind. It was still super delicious.

The extreme heat a couple of weeks ago made me lament the fact that I had not prepared some frozen gin treats earlier in the month. I quickly leapt to action to remedy that, despite crossing my fingers that the heat and humidity wouldn’t return as viciously. Of course as soon as I put said treats in the freezer, Brisbane was treated to days and days of clouds and rain. But today? Today was a stinker. Happy Australia day.

Gin, Watermelon & Blackberry Iceblocks

• 750g-1kg seedless watermelon (coarsely chopped, chilled)
• 45ml lime juice, or to taste
• 25ml gin
• 15g pure icing sugar (sieved)
• 40g blackberries
• 30ml blackcurrant cordial
• 30ml crème de mure (or cassis)

 

To get 300ml watermelon juice, process 300-450g watermelon in a food processor and pass through a coarse sieve. Add lime juice, gin and icing sugar and stir well to dissolve sugar. Half-fill all your iceblock moulds and freeze until starting to firm (1-2 hours).

While you’re waiting, process blackberries and remaining watermelon in a food processor and pass through a coarse sieve to yield ~400ml juice. Add cordial and crème de mure and stir to combine. Once the first halves have been freezing for around an hour, divide the blackberry mix among moulds. Freeze until just firm (1-2 hours), insert paddle pop sticks and freeze until completely frozen (minimum 2-3 hours, though overnight is smarter).

When eating time arrives, unmould iceblock and consume immediately before it melts all over you.

 

There are so many different words for these things, even just within the English language. In Australia, a frozen treat on a stick with a non-dairy base is an iceblock. Google tells me that across the English-speaking world, this delicious frozen treat is also referred to as: an ice pop, an ice lolly/lollipop, a lolly ice, a freezer pop, a popsicle, an icy pole, and a freezie. “Popsicle” and “icy pole” are genericised trademarks (like calling all vacuum cleaners “hoovers”). Can’t we all just stop this confusion and call them DELICIOUS?

Hey guys!

The original recipe comes from here. I’m not very adventurous with recipes, so all I did was substitute crème de mure for the original recipe’s cassis. I prefer blackberries to blackcurrants, and I already have a bottle of mure on the shelf. The recipe is a bit of a jumble of berries and currants but I tried to swing it the way of the berry (unfortunately blackberry cordial isn’t readily available on supermarket shelves).

Dudes, take the skin off before you weigh the melon.

Sieve.

The original recipe also says that 300g of watermelon, processed & passed through a coarse sieve, will yield 300ml watermelon juice. I found it was more like 450g yielded 300ml (and I also got a glass full of watermelon pulp to nom on), so keep that in mind.

Setting the first half.

I thought I was being clever and cute by setting the iceblocks in shot glasses and putting sticks in them when half set. Another mistake I made (learn from my mistakes, people) – I’ve gathered now that paddle pop sticks (er, another genericised trademark… also known as pop sticks, popsicle sticks or craft sticks) are used for a reason. I imagine that reason is the slight traction a wooden stick gives when a liquid freezes around it, compared to, say… a plastic cocktail fork. The fork just slides right back out of the frozen liquid. Durfred. Luckily I also had a proper iceblock set on hand.

I've fallen a bit in love with my food processor.

DONE.

Add the creme de mure/cassis and Bob’s your uncle.

Mure enthusiast.

Now, because I happened to make these on a night some friends came around, I got too distracted to take photos when I poured in the second layer and set the sticks. Darn my social life, distracting me from my cause.

Anyway… I got pretty worried about the cooler weather, despite my love for it. What if I didn’t get to have my iceblocks before the end of Ginuary? What a waste! So I was actually happy to see the sun finally come out this morning. Well, okay – I was only happy after I remembered the iceblocks. Before that I was just upset.

Australia Day BBQ. Perfect iceblock time.

My household had a BBQ at our place for Australia Day / Hottest 100 Day. It was the perfect surrounds for me to pull out the iceblocks.

Hey, good-lookin'.

It looks pretty delicious, no?

TASTES GOOD.

I’m happy to say that these are delicious. I’m guessing that it’s the alcohol in them that makes them not freeze completely solid – the iceblocks still have that crunchy texture that happens to be my absolute favourite, so I was stoked.

Crunch crunch crunch.

I may have eaten all four of these this afternoon, but I’m happy to say that I’ve still got all those shots in the freezer. I think I might crunch them up and make a delicious granita. HEAVEN!

Here’s a story for you. Ginuary is also on twitter, facebook and tumblr, right? A day or two ago, this tumblr account called It’s a Cock-Off! reblogged a couple of Ginuary posts. As I am a curious soul, I checked out the tumblr, and saw they’d reblogged something fairly delicious-looking from another tumblr account, I Feel the Cosmos. That account’s by-line is “Original video game cocktail creations!”. As I’m a bit of a nerd, I was pretty stoked to come across it.

Afternoon Tipple (Professor Layton)

• 45ml earl grey tea infused gin
• 30ml white creme de cacao
• 20ml Cointreau
• 60ml cream
• 1 sugar cube
• 2-3 dashes orange bitters

 

One day in advance, infuse 90ml gin with 1tsp loose earl grey tea. Let it steep overnight. WORTH IT.
In a shaker, saturate 1 sugar cube with orange bitters and muddle until as dissolved as you can get it. Then add the rest of the ingredients and shake it up. Double strain into a fancy teacup.

 

This will no double be another day when my friend Pete gets cranky over me leaving him out, if only because I know about Professor Layton thanks to Pete, and also the tea aspect is a Pete thing. Sorry, Pete. If it makes you feel any better, it was delicious and I thought of you while I imbibed.

An interesting collection.

I don’t know why I was so excited to make this, but I was. The infusion? The teacup? Probably a combination of those two. Unfortunately I forgot to upload the infusion photos before heading out to a friend’s place for the evening (where I’m writing this post) so I’ll have to come back and update with those photos. I did take them. I promise. It’s not like the whole process was very tricky.

"Soaked".

The recipe says that 2-3 dashes of bitters will soak the sugar cube. Lies. Lies, I say. It’ll get soaked in but once you muddle it, you’ll come to the quick realisation that dissolving the sugar will take a bit more liquid. I wasn’t game to get much more bitters involved.

Oh, Cointreau.

I’m slowly regaining my feelings for Cointreau. It’s a long and tedious process. We’re getting there.

INFUSION.

Seriously, making up the earl grey tea infused gin yesterday was exciting. It was very much so a case of the tea settling at the bottom of the gin yesterday afternoon, compared to a generally tea-coloured gin this afternoon. I’m not going to lie, I may have squeaked with joy.

Pure cream, baby.

So the last two days have been all weird additions, all the time. Yesterday it was egg white and today it’s cream! I don’t know why these things are so awkward for me. I was concerned that shaking the cream up would curdle it? I don’t know. I have a lot of anxiety.

DOUBLE STRAIN THAT SHIZNIT.

Double straining was NO QUESTION with this. If there are tea leaves in your gin, you need to strain those out. Durfred. Don’t question me. DOUBLE STRAIN. I’m a real fan of double straining. Any examples where you definitely SHOULDN’T double strain? Because I’m thinking it might just be the way forward for all cocktails ever.

Reeeeeeeeeesult.

The Hendrick’s mug is very small. It holds about a half-drink. I kept drinking it and topping it up from the shaker and I have no regrets about that. This drink is VERY orange, also gin and chocolate. Delicious. Super tasty. Drink it before the cream gets thick. It’s important. Then do not drive after drinking.

This COULD be milky tea.

Today is Tuesday, and yet I woke up knowing I had to do nothing at all today. Hooray for holidays! To celebrate, I decided to have my favourite cocktail. I’ve hesitated over making this because one of the ingredients is egg white, and I’ve been anxious about my shaking skills. With nothing else on the cards today, I decided to face my fears.

Clover Club

• 50ml gin
• 30ml lemon juice
• 20ml sugar syrup
• half an egg white
• 6 fresh raspberries

 

Add all ingredients to a shaker. Muddle the raspberries, then dry shake like crazy (to emulsify the egg white). Add some ice and shake for a few more seconds.

Double strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a fresh raspberry.

 

The Clover Club pre-dates prohibition, and what that mostly means is that there’s no definitive recipe that everyone uses. The majority of recipes I’ve come across for this drink all mention raspberry syrup or grenadine. A world of thanks must go to Chris from Kerbside, who set me straight with his preferred Clover Club recipe – using fresh raspberries. Chris’s ingredient list is almost identical to that of 1806, which is where I first tried and fell in love with this drink.

Fresh lineup!

Plymouth has quickly become a new favourite of mine. It’s smooth and versatile. I hope the new bottles come out in Australia soon, because I think they’re really nice.

Fresh stuff ready to throw in.

For someone who doesn’t do a lot in the kitchen apart from cleaning up, I was pretty happy at this afternoon’s egg-separating skills.

Fresh raspberry glee.

Yesterday I used fresh blueberries, today I used some fresh raspberries. I hit a berry jackpot at the supermarket a couple of days ago, if you didn’t realise.

Muddling raspberries is SO MUCH FUN GUYS

Raspberries just fall apart underneath a muddler. If you have any raspberries you want me to muddle, just let me know, because I have already muddled all the ones I had left.

This viscosity makes me uncomfortable.

Oh, egg white.

There was a time in my life where I didn’t drink a lot of cocktails. (I KNOW.) Back then, if I saw “egg white” in the listed ingredients for a cocktail, I was horrified. EGG in a COCKTAIL!? UGH.

It all changed for me when I had a big night out at 1806 in Melbourne. That night I tried a Clover Club, amongst a bunch of other delicious things with ingredients that I probably would have been afraid of when I was younger. Everything was ridiculously delicious, but this is another story for another time.

Double strain. I won't tell you again.

I will, though. I will tell you again. You need to double strain this after shaking, because when you muddle raspberries, they disintegrate into millions of little red pips.

Tada.

And there we have it. The most lovely drink. I don’t know why I’m so fond of it – maybe because it started it all for me? I’ll judge a bar by how well they do a Clover Club. As far as I’m concerned, the fresh raspberries are essential in getting it right. You can’t fake that flavour. I guess it’s like not freshly squeezing your juices, you know?

Clover Club: cocktail of my heart.

Thanks again to Chris for his recipe – it was the perfect balance of sweet and fresh, and I couldn’t be happier with how this turned out.

I am back at home with two weeks of holidays ahead of me. Everything’s coming up Ginuary. I bought a bunch of fresh berries from the supermarket the other day and they are so delicious! Time to make things with them! Gin things.

English Afterthought

• 60ml gin
• 15ml St-Germain
• 1 Tbsp blueberries
• 1 Tbsp fresh ginger
• ginger beer

 

Muddle the blueberries and ginger together in a highball or collins glass. Fill the glass with ice, then add gin and ginger beer. Stir well and then top with ginger beer. Garnish with a few more blueberries – why not?

 

This cocktail is officially only three years old (give or take a few months?) and credit goes to Michael Geist from the Edison in LA (though I got it from Cocktailia). It’s nice and refreshing but also really sweet, depending on the type of ginger beer you use. Bundaberg ginger beer makes it very, very sweet.

A more standard line-up.

The green bottle of ginger sugar syrup is there because I considered using it instead of ginger, as I didn’t have any fresh stuff on me tonight. I ended up leaving out the sugar syrup and putting some Coles ginger paste into the mix instead, but either I didn’t use enough or the sweetness of the drink just more overpowering than the ginger.

Smashing berries.

Muddling the blueberries was fun. Up until a couple of months ago I’d never looked at the insides of a blueberry; it was a strange discovery for me. It’s got white flesh inside. MIND BLOWN.

Hello, old friend.

Hendrick’s! Welcome back! I do love you so.

This may be where things started to go wrong.

I got this set of six adorable little bottles, styled like old-school milk bottles. They’re quite small, though – I think they’re only around 200ml each, so adding two and a half shots of alcohol with a lot of ice and then trying to top them up with with a mixer is just a bit of a wasted effort. I should have perhaps halved one recipe over two bottles, instead of giving them a recipe each.

Do not serve to children.

Despite that, they’re still really cute. Cute and potent. I’ve been diluting as I drink, topping up with more ginger beer… yet the ginger beer is very, very sweet. It’s all a bit too much. I think a homemade ginger beer would be a much better alternative for this drink.

Delicious sediment.

Gonna go eat that tasty mush out of the bottom of the bottle with a spoon now. I think that’s going to be the best part of this drink. Then I might eat the leftover blueberries, too.