Two Finger Rickey

So, I’ve found a new fruit. Microcitrus australasica, or the Australian native finger lime. These delicious fruits are shaped liked tiny little green bananas or maybe salad fingers. They are full of tart lime caviar and are utterly delicious. Tim Philips might think all the good fruits have been used, but this one is just a little ripper.

Apparently well known in the foodie trade, finger limes are reported to pack much more vitamin punch than the average fingerless limes, but it was just a dude in a market that told me that, so probably don’t go quoting me on that.

Two Finger Rickey

45 mls Tradewinds Gin, 15 mls sugar syrup, 10mls fresh squeezed lime juice, two finger limes.

Scrape the insides out of the finger limes, combine all the other ingredients with the limey caviar goodness over ice and give a good, hard shake.

Strain, allowing the caviar to fall through into the drink. Garnish with a finger lime, if you have any left.

The Drake

I wrote a few days ago about Ben Simpson’s amazing Gunpowder Rum, here is the first of a limited series of cocktails that feature the unique spirit.

The Drake

30ml Man O’War Gunpowder Rum
20ml Havana Club 7yr
3 fresh hulled strawberries
20ml balsamic drizzle syrup (available from good deli’s)
2 dashes simple syrup
5 basil leaves

Muddle all except alcohol. Add the rums and shake resolutely.
Strain into chilled martini glass (either modern or antique cut crystal from a junk shop).

Garnish: sprig of basil and whole strawberry on rim of glass, finish with grind of black pepper.

Named after Sir Francis Drake (1540-1596), some time favourite of Queen Elizabeth I.
The combination of strawberries, balsamic and black pepper is from the Elizabethan age, while Drake was active in the Caribbean as a privateer. To the Spanish speaking peoples of the area he was known as ‘El Draque’ and famous for his exploits taking gold from the Spanish who were, in their turn, on their way home from plundering the Americas.

It is said that an early form of the Mojito was drunk in the Caribbean during the 16th Century and was called ‘El Draque’. Ben would be interested to see historical proof of this.

MixMarch #20: Julep #1

Still working my way through The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks and stumbled into Julep country. Mr Embury has an obvious passion for the Bourbon Slushy so I thought I’d try my hand.

Juleps come from a time when spirits were commonplace in drinks at any time a clock could show, and the Minted Julep offered a cool, refreshing respite while sitting on the porch, watching your workforce toil in the cotton fields. With the current Bourbon revival in full swing, this is a drink that is sure to making more of an appearance in the coming year.

Julep #1

Place your metal vessel in the freezer ahead of time, getting a good frost is key to the look and feel of a Julep and a frozen cup makes this much easier to achieve.

In a bar glass place three dashes of Angostura bitters*, 15mls of simple syrup and 12 fresh mint leaves. Give these a gentle muddle, to much vigor will taint the drink with a bitter aftertaste, so take your time and tease the oils out. And a generous measure (at least 60mls) of bourbon to this mixture and set it to one side.

Take your frozen vessel from the freezer and fill it with crushed ice. If you have a machine, use that, but beating cubes in a clean tea towel works too.

Pour in the minty bourbon, giving the ice a stir with up and down movements to ensure the correct slushy consistency and to accelerate the frosty exterior. Top the cup with more crushed ice so it’s full to the brim, or heaped like a Taiwanese snow cone. Add two short straws and a garnish of mint, the tips of the plant make the best looking garnishes. Exhale deeply and enjoy this truly superior drink.

*I’ve never come across another recipe that calls for angostura and I did think it a little odd from the outset, however, it delivers a Julep of unusual character, just as Embury promises.

P.S. I do believe this might just be the prettiest looking drink I’ve ever made.

MixMarch #17: The South Ireland Sour

No, there hasn’t been a terrorist attack, it St Patrick’s Day. A day for everyone on earth to pretend they’re Irish, hang up their moral compass and run naked through the streets of common sense. In Chicago, they like it so much they’ll poison their rivers with “organic” food colouring. In order to properly honour this day of days, I present to you, dear reader, The South Ireland Sour.

This drink is the brainchild of Jacob Briars, enfant terrible of the international bar cheffing community, voted second most likely to blow up the Houses of Parliament by his year 2 classmates and 42Below‘s Professor of vodka.

Briar’s came up with the idea for the drink whilst undertaking a walking tour of Ireland’s bog snorkelling arena. Up to his eyeballs in Bog Violet and tadpoles, the most unusal pairing of Feijoa and Guinness entered his mind, and stayed there, despite numerous attempts to scour it out with Bushmills at a Cork Hotel later that evening.

It was not until Jacob made it back to New Munster that this curious recipe got to see the light of day. And so it was, at the 2007 Cocktail World Cup in Queenstown, New Zealand, the drink was shook. And poured, and supped.

The first remarks were “that has the look of filthy pondwater” quickly followed by “that’s a hell of a drink”

So, go on, get a little Irish in ya.

The South Ireland Sour*

Take equal parts Guinness, 42Below Feijoa Vodka, Simple Syrup and fresh lemon juice. Add a dash of fresh egg white. Ice and shake like you’ve lost ownsership of all your lands and you’ve naught to eat but pa-tay-tas. Strain up. Obvious garnish choices would include a four-leaf clover, a leprechaun or the false hopes of a technology led economy.

*Just in case there’s Americans reading this who otherwise might miss the witty subtext: Cork, where the drink was conceived is in the county of Munster in the Emerald Isle. The South Island in New Zealand was once called New Munster, by our first Governor, William Hobson, largely due to the abundance of pots of gold and wee folk. By using the words ‘South Ireland’ for a drink made in the ‘South Island’, Jacob has alluded to the connection between the two places and the ingredients in the beverage. This is what is called a homophonic pun, but has nothing to do with gay rights. It is exactly this type of considered, intelligent wordplay that prompted the North Seatoun Bowling Club, Domino Shack and College of Cardinals** to award Jacob his Professorial Degree.

**I realise this name is quite a mouthful and sounds a tad made up, in all honesty though, it is proof of what happens when a mixed member proportional system of government, devised by an invading power and meant to cripple a country, is instituted in a small shire like New Zealand. Special Interest groups quickly combine, unholy trinities result and the next thing you know, Winston Peters is the country’s Foreign Minister.

P.S. Should any of you plowed on this far, prepare to reap the reward of your efforts as I weld one more tenuous link in the chain that has become this article and link the drink with the otherwise incongruous photo the beginning. Before it was named New Munster, the South Island had another name Te Wai Pounamu, or, The Waters of Green Stone. Which links nicely to those green waters at the start. No loose ends here then, move along.

Friday Fix: Cherry Gin Sour

One of the great things about this time of year in Sydney is the fresh cherries. Head up to the Kings Cross markets on a Saturday and you’;l find at least a couple of stands selling beautiful boxes of cherries.

While the fruit are quite hard to whip up into cocktails, short of making syrups or muddling handfuls and steeping them in spirits, there is another side of the proliferation of these special little fruit, Pressed Cherry Juice. The juice is made from those cherries not pretty enough to move of the shelf, luckily, these are also some of the sweetest and juiciest as well.

The juice is not a manufactured product, so expect a lot of variation between products and you’ll need to tweak the recipe to make sure you don’t just end up with Cherry tasting juice that’s alcoholic.

The Cherry Gin Sour

60mls Tanqueray 10 Gin, 10 mls pressed cherry juice, 15mls freshly squeezed lemon juice, 5mls sugar syrup. Combine all ingredients over ice in a shaker, shake, strain over a sour glass filled with fresh ice. Green garnishes look great against the deep red of the drink.

Unusual Martinis #2

Sometimes just producing a more meaty martini doesn’t quite cut it. For those times, and probably only as a first drink, i give you the Curry Martini. This drink was invented by Rush, a Nepalese bartender at Opia at the Jia Hotel in Hong Kong for the 42 Below Regional finals.

The Curry Martini

Muddle red and green chilli, lemongrass, shallots, coriander, ginger and garlic in the bottom of a Boston Glass. Add 30 mls 42 Below Manuka Honey vodka, 15 mls ginger liqueur, 30mls pineapple juice. Add a dash of egg white for a silky consistency and a dash of simple syrup for balance. Top the glass with ice and shake vigorously. Double strain the drink into a martini glass to ensure none of those pesky chili seeds make it through to burn your mouth. Garnish with chili, onion and coriander and let the flavor explode on your palate.

You can even watch Rush make it himself on youtube.

Rush likes his with a reinvention of the Falling Water cocktail, but its great on its own as well.

The Tokyo Strawberry Bellini

For anyone that has been to Japan and enjoyed the craft and selection of liquor on show at any of the great standing bars in the city, the experience of every aspect of the production being focussed on perfection, the quality of experience is astounding.

When my girlfriend and I visited Tokyo 18 months ago, we visited an unnamed glass cube attached to the bottom of a non-descript eight story apartment building in the back streets of Hiro prefecture. While I drank my way through the finest selection of Rums I have ever seen, Chelsey ordered a Champagne cocktail. The bartender agreed and pulled out three of the plumpest most wonderful looking strawberries I have ever seen in my life and went to work.

Last night I made an effort at recreating this fabulous beverage.

Not having access to the most perfect fruit on earth, I made do with Australian produce and muddled ten large red strawberries with about 15 mls of 1:1 sugar syrup. Muddling is the fine art of pounding fruit and sugar together to form a puree. You want to try and free as much of the juice as is possible from the fibrous tendrils of the strawberry goodness. Once you have your juicy pulp, you need to strain it to remove the juice from the pulp. As this is the Tokyo Strawberry Bellini, I opted to triple strain the liquid. this means passing it through the strainer three times, you could also use three strainers, one on top of the other. The result is a vibrant red liquid with an absolute minimum of pulp and absolutely no seeds.

Reserve the pulp to use in Strawberry frozen daiquiris or spread it on toast for a punchy alternative to jam. 

Chill the glasses first, or maybe load a couple in the freezer the day before.

Pour the refined juice into a Champagne flute, aiming to fill the glass about one third full. Top up with Bubbles, I am making the most of the cheap abundance of Pinot and Chardonnay based Aussie bubbles on offer here, but in keeping with the nature of the drink and its forebears, the best you have at hand is probably the way to go. Garnish with the best looking strawberry you have and love every drop that slides down your throat.