Mother’s Day is one of the biggest days of the year for the restaurant trade so bartenders have been coming up with ideas for celebratory cocktails.
At Old Bengal Bar in the City of London, five cocktails have been added in time for Mother’s Day on March 6, inspired by a new fragrance, Equinox Bloom, from luxury perfume house Penhaligon’s.
Each of the cocktails is based on a Penhaligon’s fragrance, such as the Levantium, which combines Hibiki Japanese Harmony whisky, absinthe, Peychaud’s Bitters, Angostura bitters and clove smoke to recreate the spicy warmth of the inspiring scent of the same name.
The Equinox Bloom cocktail (pictured top) mixes Mount Gay Black Barrel and Aphrodite bitters with violet liqueur, jasmine syrup and orange blossom to recapture the spring floral notes of the perfume. The five cocktails will be on the list for three months.
Especially for Mother’s Day, whisky producer R&B Distillers has teamed up with London bar Bourne & Hollingsworth Buildings for a cocktail, Ma-jito, using its new Borders whisky (pictured).
Ma-jito
40ml Borders whisky
15ml Lemon juice
15ml Crème de pêche
5ml Acacia honey
2 dashes Orange bitters
6 Mint leaves
Glass: Highball
Add all ingredients to the glass. Add crushed ice. Churn gently and then cap with crushed ice. Garnish with a mint sprig, lemon twist and rose petal.
Campari is promoting a twist on a popular classic for Mother’s Day, The Lady Negroni. It maintains the classic bitterness of the original recipe but with floral flavours and sweeter notes from elderflower and marmalade. It was created by bartender Ionut Ivanov of Exquisite BarSolutions, based in Bucharest in Romania.
The Lady Negroni
25 ml Campari
15 ml Cinzano Rosso
20 ml Sweet vermouth
1 barspoon Elderflower and orange marmalade
1 dash of elderflower syrup
Shake all ingredients, strain and serve in a goblet. Garnish with an orange zest and rim with Campari infused sugar.
At Aqua Shard, head bartender Edoardo Casarotto has created The Hendrick’s Daisy (pictured below), bursting with delicate flavours of elderflower, peach, lemon, bitters and a dash of cucumber juice as well as rose and cucumber which are botanicals found in Hendrick’s Gin.
The Hendrick’s Daisy by Edoardo Casarotto
35ml Hendrick’s Gin
15ml St Germain elderflower liqueur
10ml Peach liqueur
10ml Cucumber juice
10ml Lemon juice
10ml Simple syrup
2 dashes Peychaud’s Bitters
Lemongrass
Egg white
Dry shake all ingredients and strain into a coupe. Garnish with an edible daisy.
Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) is running a special promotion for its Appletiser range in the run-up to Mother’s Day. At over 6,000 outlets, point-of-sale materials such as drinks mats, table talkers and A3 posters direct people to enter a competition online offering five prizes of VIP tickets to Royal Ascot on June 17. The draw continues until March 31.
Caroline Cater, operational marketing director at CCE, said: “The Appletiser brand has long been synonymous with Mother’s Day, and we saw the opportunity to marry together this important calendar moment for licensees with this year’s Royal Ascot as the official soft drink of the event.”
The promotion is running in Stonegate Pub Company’s Yates bars which have a range of activities tying in with Mother’s Day. Mums can enjoy a free meal on March 6 when dining with at least one other person, and, to add to the celebration, a glass of Galanti Prosecco is on offer for only £2.95 for the whole week leading up to Mother’s Day.
Stonegate’s Slug and Lettuce bars are offering the prize of a free bowl of sparkling wine in a competition supported via social media, calling for people to say “why their mum is the best”. Families are also being offered a set meal of three courses from £12 a head. It will also be raising funds for the bars’ official charity, Breast Cancer Care.
Beth McDonald, head of marketing at the Slug and Lettuce, says: “All mums across the UK deserve to be treated this March and what better way than surprising her with a meal out and a possible glass of fizz.”
