bringing drinks to life

It’s been a hectic couple of weeks for me, with distillery visits, new products being sent to me, catching up with master distillers and the first Imbibe bar show, not to mention a food and cocktail pairing hosted by Courvoisier and Bompass & Parr. I guess I can’t complain when every day there seems to be something new to try or someone new to meet.

 

 

So today I thought I’d share a few of the best tipples that I have stumbled across recently and drop a few teasers for the series of updates I have planned for the bitters&twisted blog over the next few weeks.

 

 

 

I was lucky enough to be given a bottle of Courviosier Exclusif, which is a cognac that has been developed specifically with cocktails in mind. So without even a moment of hesitation I set about tasting it and seeing what inspiration would come for making a couple of cocktails.

 

 

Courvoisier Exclusive is a lively and well-structured cognac that on the nose offers clean citrus notes balanced with under ripe orchard fruits, scorched wood and a hint of leather and chocolate. On tasting it I noticed an immediate bitterness like walnut skins that gives way to peach and white fruit flavours before moving on to a creamy rich finish with chocolate and coffee notes. I wanted to stay away from the traditional cognac cocktails so reached for some citrus and Campari to see what I could come up with:

 

50 ml Courvoisier Exclusif

15 ml lime juice

15 ml Campari

10 ml Merlet crème de peche

1 dash Angostura bitters

 

Pour all ingredients into a shaker with plenty of cubed or cracked ice and shake well before straining into a chilled coupe. Twist a good sized lemon peel over the top and discard, leaving the drink ungarnished.

 

 

I was lucky enough to spend a few hours in the company of Jimmy Russell, the master distiller from Wild Turkey a couple of weeks ago. I met Jimmy last year when I was in Kentucky and spending time with him was one of the highlights of my trip, so seeing him again was a special treat.

 

 

I’ve always loved Wild Turkey 101, and Rare Breed is one of my top 5 bourbons of all time! But there is something special about meeting the man who makes a spirit you enjoy, it creates a deeper attachment to the brand. Hearing the thought process behind the way it’s made and seeing first hand the passion that goes into it makes you appreciate it all the more. That’s a subject I’ll be exploring more in the near future, but for now here’s an old favourite, the Boulevardier, tweaked a little bit to showcase this great bourbon:

50 ml Wild Turkey 101 bourbon

25 ml Dubonnet Rouge

25 ml Noilly Prat

2 dashes orange bitters 

 

In an Old Fashioned glass combine all ingredients with cubed ice and stir to dilute and chill, before garnishing with an orange twist.

 

 

This week saw the first attempt by Imbibe magazine at hosting a trade show and to my mind they managed to a great job. Free entry (you might remember the controversy about Bar10 charging admission earlier in the year) only spirits, wines and beers on exhibition, some great seminars and competitions and a really good crowd made for a great couple of days. I was please to see a few new (and newish) products on display including Bloom Gin, Purity Vodka and Chairman’s Reserve Spiced. Hopefully I’ll find an excuse to review some of those products for you soon.

 

 

I was also pleased to see the chaps from Chase distillery were there with their range available for people to taste. I visited their distillery on Monday, which was an amazing experience. Chase are an English distillery producing vodka, gin and fruit liqueurs and as they own the farm and orchards where most of their ingredients come from they control every step of their production from field to bottle. I’ll be talking more about them in the coming weeks too.

 

 

In the meantime another unusual product has arrived at b&t HQ, Babicka wormwood vodka. I first tried it last year at the CLASS bar show, and at the time I have to be honest I didn’t give it a lot of thought. Since then though I have been fortunate enough to meet Alex, one of the guys behind the brand and he gave me an insight into the thought process behind the product.

 

 

Looking at it with fresh eyes (and tasting it with a fresh palette) I really like not only the story behind the brand but also the liquid in the bottle. You see Babicka is the Czech name that was given to peasant grandmothers in the sixteenth century who dabbled in witchcraft. They would produce potions and charms to heal all ailments, gathering wormwood and other herbs and macerating them in alcohol. The Babicka recipes constitute some of the early European uses of medicinal alcohol and Babicka vodka is a testiment to those recipes.

 

 

Woormwood is a fantastically bitter substance and balancing it in a spirit must have taken a lot of experimenting, but in Babicka we have a brave new product that has loads of potential. It is a brave move to launch any new vodka, let alone one that is flavoured with a bitter herb like wormwood, but the result is a product crying out to be experimented with. Babicka will be featured in more depth soon but in the meantime here is a cocktail we came up with (or rather adapted from a classic) the other day. On tasting Babicka I couldn’t help but think that it would work as a substitute for gin as it has floral and herbal notes, and not wanting to overpower it I decided to use it in a twist on a Gin & It:

 

60 ml Babicka wormwood vodka

15 ml Antica Formula vermouth

1 dash Bitter Truth orange bitters 

 

Stir all ingredients with plenty of cubed or cracked ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass or coupe. As this is such a clean and simple drink I like to leave it un-garnished although you could try an orange twist if you prefer.

 

 

Another recently launched product that we are particularly enjoying is Berry Bothers & Rudd’s new No. 3 Gin. The name comes from the address of Berry Bros shop at No.3 St James, and as they are an English institution you would expect their gin to be quintessentially English. Well you wont be disappointed!

 

 

No.3 is a crisp, fresh London Dry gin made with only 6 botanicals and bottled at 46% abv. It is juniper led, with clean citrus coming through in the form of orange and grapefruit peel, at the end coriander seed adds a peppery note that compliments the cardamom finish beautifully. This is a gin crying out to be turned into a Martini, but as we like to be a bit more experimental here’s a summer refresher we came up with last night.

 

50 ml No.3 gin

25 ml lemon juice

10 ml lemoncello

15 ml green tea syrup

2 cardamom pods

 

Crush the cardamom pods to release the seeds and muddle with the green tea gomme before adding the remaining ingredients and plenty of cubed or cracked ice. Shake hard and serve over ice in a chilled teacup (or an iced tea glass) and finish off with a lemon twist and a cardamom pod.