The Fifty Pounds Gin is my preferred style, classic with plenty of juniper and citrus. Very clean and dry. So that’s perfect to pair with fruit. I’ve been on a rhubarb kick lately and for some reason that always reminds me of the UK (I blame your cooking programs). Rhubarb, juniper and citrus go perfectly together. I also wanted to accentuate the orange flavours some more, so I used a local Blood Orange Liqueur. The dry sherry is there to prevent it from getting too sweet and the nuttiness plays well with the others. The dashes of absinthe are very subtle but accentuated by the nose full of tarragon. The (rehydrated) blood orange slice is just there to look pretty.⁠

I love delicate, strong cocktails, that’s one of the reasons I love Fifty Pounds gin. Fifty Pounds is a beautifully clean gin with lovely citrus and spice, I think it serves as amazing canvas for a martini. I also get a lot of inspiration from the Great British Bake-off. ⁠
In the build-up to London Cocktail week, I was on Holiday in Morocco, which reminded me of my time in Istanbul, and also watched a bit of old Bake-off. Long story short what I had bubbling around in my head was: Strawberries, figs, Turkish delight, rosewater. ⁠I decided to make a delicate version of a delicate cocktail to showcase how precise ingredients blended precisely could make an amazing drink.

One of my earliest memories is of dancing around the house wearing a towel as a cloak and a bowl as a crown, pretending to be a queen whilst my favourite nursery rhyme played… ⁠
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“Lavender’s blue, dilly dilly, lavender’s green,⁠
When I am king, dilly dilly, you shall be queen”.⁠
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London cocktail week is the perfect time to create a cocktail fit for any wannabe king or queen who once dreamed of living in Buckingham Palace. The beautiful citrus notes and slight spice of Fifty Pounds Gin balance perfectly with the blueberry and lavender of this regal gin cocktail, to give layers of sweet and sour, fruit and spice.⁠

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I was very excited about this project because I already knew Fifty Pounds Gin and loved its classic taste and history.⁠
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I mostly enjoy gins with a classic flavour profile in which the juniper stands at the forefront and is just complimented by the rest of the botanicals. I love gins that are true to themselves and their category and don’t need to employ any gimmick in order to stand out. To me, Fifty Pounds gin reflects this philosophy. The fact that’s been on the market for almost 10 years already is further proof of the claim!⁠
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My cocktail wants to celebrate all this, so decided to make a twist on one of my favourite classic cocktails, the Clover Club (I’m still to meet someone who doesn’t like one, btw!) and called it ‘the test of time’⁠
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With this choice of ingredients, I wanted to compliment the gin flavour profile where I always find a lightly savoury note which the red pepper highlights and a lovely zesty flavour that the raspberry and lemon juice embrace perfectly. The smoked paprika rounds everything up and adds an extra layer of flavour and a beautiful, unexpected finish.⁠”⁠

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Here’s me reverting to the classics again. I’ve made a basic Gin Daisy as per Difford’s suggestion of adding some Yellow Chartreuse, and I’ve swapped out the usual Grenadine for a Pink Grapefruit Syrup. 

The result is a slightly more tart and dry Gin Daisy that is still packed with flavour.  

“Switch one out to make something new.”
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What I do quite often when I have the time and nerves to do so is taking classic 3 or 4 ingredient drinks and switch out one of them. Be it the base spirit, some liqueur or just lemon for lime. Here’s one of these – did you have working experiments like this yet?

The White Lady is often done with egg white but mainly about Cointreau as the secondary taste for the Gin base. And while Violet Liqueur definitely is the most instagrammable substitute for it, it’s also the roundest version of it I did yet (trust me, Jägermeister makes this the total opposite of a) good looking and b) a good drink).

Fifty Pounds Gin for floral smoothness and the legendary Bitter Truth Violet Liqueur.

I have a habit of only making strong, ‘sophisticated’ drinks with Fifty Pounds Gin, to match its clean taste and elegant style. This time though, I wanted to show its fun side in a long fruity drink, and I just couldn’t get the idea of using blueberries out of my head.

So this is what I came up with – the Fifty Bar Blues – a tall, sweet, refreshing glass of good times to beat these cold, dark, wet days in the UK.

The Martini cocktail was originally made with equal parts sweet vermouth and gin.  It became drier when martini introduces the dry vermouth and with the introduction of London dry gin. 

Martini traditionally is stirred, but you can shake it if you use a smaller ratio, for example, 5:1. 

If you prefer it less dry, you can increase the vermouth and lower the gin ratio creating another popular serve known as a Reversed Martini. 

Classically the Gimlet is a simple 50-50 mix of gin and lime cordial but like every other drink, the Gimlet can be expanded to create other versions and riffs.  We’ve chosen the Mandarin Gimlet which is sweet, tart, tangy and refreshing and therefor perfect at any dinner or Garden party.

Try to use Satsuma mandarins which are not to be confused with clementine’s, oranges, or even tangerines. They’re sweet like honey, with just the tiniest bit of acid, and the flesh of the fruit itself is incredibly tender.

The original Bramble cocktail was created in the mid-’80s by Dick Bradsell at Fred’s Club in Soho, London.  We’ve made a couple of small twists:

• First, we’ve replaced the Blackberry Liqueur with Black Raspberry Liqueur.
• Second, we’ve shaken all the ingredients together – the classic cocktail requires to pour the liqueur on top of the crushed ice.

The Black Raspberries taste is more fruity and less tart than a blackberry.  It also contains less sugar so is not as sweet and has a unique flavour that is not similar to any other berry.