the outside of the shaker gets nice and frosty. Some drinks are stirred and you’ll want to do this with a smooth, steady turn of the wrist (keep your elbow still, it’s not cake batter!) for at least 30 seconds.
With either technique, always strain out the mixing ice unless the recipe indicates otherwise. The agitation during mixing breaks down the ice so it will melt faster, resulting in a drink that quickly becomes watered down. For drinks served on the rocks, use fresh ice in the serving glass.
MUDDLING
The fresher the drinks you want to mix up, the more you will fall in love with muddling. It’s a fantastic mixing technique used to juice the majority of fruits and to extract the essence from herbs, creating a flavoursome crushed base for a drink out of fresh ingredients. Once you learn the value of a muddler, you’ll wonder where this amazing tool has been all your life!
The process of muddling is incredibly simple: place the ingredients to be muddled in the bottom of a mixing glass or shaker and press them with the flat end of the muddler until well mixed (a minute or two usually does it). Use a twisting motion with your wrist as you push down to accentuate the mixing.
Fruits that are to be muddled should be cut into small pieces (a few centimetres). Citrus fruits work well as half slices and wedges, and there is no need to remove the peel. For leafy herbs like mint and basil, tear the leaves or slap them between your palms before dropping them into the glass to maximise the flavour. Other herbs (such as lavender and rosemary) and spices can be tossed in whole, as long as any stems have been removed beforehand.
SPARKLING ROSÉ
Quite a few of the recipes you’ll find in this book call for sparkling rosé. If you already have a bottle of still rosé open, don’t rush to the shops for a bottle of bubbly; you can mimic sparkling rosé by adding a little soda water to still rosé. Just a couple of splashes in a glass or so of wine will give a nice effervescence without overly diluting it. The other option is to add a splash of soda water directly to the drink after pouring the still wine.
SANGRIAS AND PUNCHES
We’re dealing with wine recipes here, so you should expect to find a few sangrias and other wine punches. Each recipe was written for 170ml (6fl oz) servings, and the number of servings each recipe produces is indicated. If you need more or less punch, simply increase or decrease each ingredient accordingly, as long as you always keep the ingredients in proportion.
You’ll also see that the sangria recipes suggest ‘marrying’ the flavours by chilling the drink overnight. This is the best way to create punches that use fresh fruits. As they sit, the liquids absorb the taste of the fruits, giving you a concoction the following day that is one beautiful blend of flavours!
IN THE BLENDER
Yes, even rosé can end up in a frozen cocktail! If you haven’t enjoyed a frosé yet, you’re in for a real treat. For the best blended drinks, chop the ice and any fruits in the blender before adding the liquid ingredients.
Most recipes call for around a cup of ice, which is five or six average-sized cubes. After blending, if the result is a little too thin for your taste, add one or two more ice cubes and blend again. And if the cocktail is too thick? Add a splash of one of the drink’s liquid ingredients.
DRESS IT UP
Garnishes are often an afterthought, especially if you’re just mixing up a drink for yourself. But they do look pretty, and they can help to make a good impression when serving guests, so it’s a good idea to practise creating them as often as you can. Additions such as citrus slices and twists, as well as herbs, can add to the flavour of a drink, too. You can squeeze a little juice in as you drink, gently press a lemon twist over the cocktail to express its essence, or drop in something like rosemary and let the herb’s flavour slowly infuse into the liquid. The smallest touches often take a cocktail from okay to spectacular.
Rimming a glass is another fun option that can be used with almost any cocktail. In these pages, for example, you’ll find the No Way Rosé Margarita, which calls for a sugar rim. Begin by wetting the rim of the glass with a liquid in the recipe (with many cocktails, a citrus wedge works perfectly). Then roll the rim of the glass around in a small dish filled with white granulated sugar until it’s coated evenly. Still holding the glass upside down, gently tap off any excess sugar and you’re ready to pour the drink. This fancy little trick goes a step further with the Birthday Cake Mimosa, in which you’ll dip the rim first into some delicious icing, followed by some coloured sprinkles!
As much as I love to muddle, my fascination with Simple Syrup is even greater. It is the one ingredient in the bar that you have absolute control over, and it’s the perfect sweetener for cold drinks because the sugar’s already been dissolved before it is added to the drink.
Many of the recipes in this book rely on homemade syrups with bespoke flavour infusions that you’ll be hard pressed to find in the shops. All of these are made using Simple Syrup, and details of these are given here. And plain Simple Syrup itself is used even more often; once you learn its dirty little secret, you’ll never waste your money buying it again!
What is Simple Syrup? Water and sugar! It’s really that simple. In a pinch, you can even combine the two ingredients in your cocktail shaker, shake it up, and voilà. That’s called ‘bar syrup’, and it will do, but there is a standard Simple Syrup recipe that you’ll turn to time and again on your cocktail adventures:
In a small saucepan, bring 250ml (8½fl oz) of water to the boil. Add 225g (8oz) of sugar and stir constantly until it has dissolved completely. Cover the pan, reduce the heat and then simmer for 15 minutes. Let the syrup cool before bottling it in a tightly sealed jar. This will produce 250ml (8½fl oz) of syrup, which will keep well in the refrigerator for a week or two.
Now that you know the secrets to Simple Syrup, it’s time to add flavour! The possibilities are endless, and you can make single-ingredient syrups or create custom blends with complementary flavours. These homemade syrups provide a great way to get the taste of fresh ingredients into an easy-to-mix sweetener.
The additional ingredients you’ll need to add to the basic syrup recipe in order to create each of the homemade syrups mentioned in this book are provided opposite. The individual recipes will then guide you through the process of making them.
For all syrups, the general technique is to add the flavouring ingredient (chopped fruit or whole herbs and spices) after turning the syrup down to a simmer, then let it steep in the syrup until it has cooled down completely. Before bottling, strain out any solid pieces so that you are left with a clean flavoured syrup.
Use the syrup for the intended cocktail, then explore its potential in other drinks – any syrup can be topped with soda water for a homemade soft drink, many will work as a sweetener for lemonade or iced tea, and some are perfect for hot drinks like coffee and tea (especially the cinnamon syrup).
Three recipes call for honey syrup, which enables you to add the flavour of honey to a drink in a form that is easier to mix. Honey syrup is made with equal parts of honey and water, stirred until they reach a uniform consistency. You can make just enough for each cocktail.
FLAVOURED SYRUPS USED IN THE RECIPES
Lavender syrup: used in the Lavender Pink Lemonade; add 3 tablespoons of lavender flowers.
Rose syrup: used in the No Way Rosé Margarita; add 120ml (4fl oz) of rose water.
Strawberry