IT'S COCKTAIL TIME!

Recipes for a whole lot of seasonal shaking

Now is the season to be practising your cocktail shaking skills if you want to wow guests over the festive period.

Men who once upon a time would have thought any concoction in a strange colour with fruit and a decorative flower on top was strictly for the birds now can’t get enough of Between the Sheets, Hanky Panky and White Lady’s at the cool bars dedicated to cocktails that have mushroomed in city centres.

So for the slick host who wishes to be able to cater for cocktail tastes when entertaining at home , there’s a new book by cocktail wizard, Douglas Ankrah. ‘Cocktails: Shaken and Stirred’ (published by Kylie Cathie £12.99).

Ankrah knows his cocktails from his onions, and has trained literally hundreds of barmen in the esoterics of cocktail creation. He set up the London Academy of Bartending, ran two of the most successful bars in London, Lab and Knightsbridge Town House, and now is a consultant for international corporations.

The book provides recipes and tips that will have you shaking like a professional.  Here’s one from the book, as pictured above:
Millionaire should be served either in a Martini glass or on the rocks in an Old-fashioned glass, preferably frozen and sugar-rimmed.
Take 75ml Jack Daniels
1 teaspoon Grenadine
1 teaspoon gomme syrup
40ml lemon juice and some hard ice cubes (are there soft ones?)
Shake everything together in a Boston shaker, then fine-strain into the glasses. Garnish with a lemon wheel.
Barman as top is master cocktail shaker,Joseph, pictured at the elegant Apicius bar and restaurant in Paris.

Winter warmer of Southern julep

ANOTHER Bourbon American whiskey (as Jack Daniels, above) is Woodford Reserve. The Bourbon name comes from the county within Kentucky in which the spirit was first created, in turn named after the French royal family.  Here, an excess of grain one season in the 1700s lead to the happy use of the extra harvest in distillation, and this then came  to be shipped from  the region with ‘Old Bourbon’ stencilled on the barrels. Thus, the whiskey came to be known as Bourbon.

Today, bourbon can and is made in other parts of the U.S. but Kentucky remains its heartland.  In 1964, bourbon was declared “America’s Native Spirit” by act of Congress and September this year was officially named as ‘National Bourbon Heritage Month’.  Scotland’s whisky producers should take note.

King among the Kentucky bourbon houses, Woodford Reserve offers a winter version of  the favoured Southern summer drink, Mint Julep:
Mint Julep Blazer
Glass: Brandy Balloon; Garnish: Orange; Twist Ice:None                           
Ingredients                       
60ml Woodford Reserve
10ml pech
4-5 peach slices
4-5 mint leaves
1 brown sugar cube
Method: Fill two tumblers with boiling water and rest two brandy glasses on them to heat them up, as above. In one glass add the Woodford, peche and sugar, turn the glass continually to heat the contents and then light (watch your eyebrows!) Whilst the mixture is alight, add the fruit again turning the glass the continually. At the last moment add the mint and then pour the entire contents from one glass into the other, repeating until the flames go out. You may chose to leave the fruit inside, if so, serve with a spoon, if not just serve as is and remember that the glass is very hot!

Drink to save the leopard

Sipping a Feline Fatale cocktail, it will taste all the sweeter in the knowledge that you are making a contribution towards saving the snow leopard.  

Snow Leopard vodka from the Polmos distillery in Poland donates 15 per cent of profits to wildlife charities committed to helping save endanger species – of which the snow leopard is one.  This beautiful creature is now extremely rare, living high in the mountains of Central Asia – so drink more of the vodka to help save it, is the message. £30 per bottle, in good retailers.
Try this cocktail created by Robert Wattie, at The Lobby Bar, One Aldwych:
Feline Fatale
50ml Snow Leopard Vodka
12.5ml Grand Marnier
12.5ml Campari
25ml orange juice
Method: Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled Martini glass. Garnish with a flamed orange twist.

Demand grows for premium vodkas

WITH VODKA the favoured base for many cocktails and vodka drinkers increasingly discriminating in their tastes, here are two other quality brands hitting the shops and the bars.

Watch for the glittering party present from Absolut vodka – the usual bottle contained within an outer that doubles as a mirrored disco dance ‘ball’ to hang from the ceiling - but only after the contents have been drunk! This 70cl Absolute Disco pack has 1,000 reflecting prisms, available as a limited edition present.

New to the UK is Akvinta vodka, discovered by many Brits holidaying in Croatia, a quality spirit that retails at £35 a bottle.