Recipes for drinks featured in the report on Christmas and New Year in the December 2012 issue of Bar magazine
Christmas and New Year are a time for celebration, especially for licensees who come up with ideas that ensure they make the most of the festive opportunity.
A range of new serves using Freixenet cavas is being promoted for festive occasions, inspired by the cocktail heritage of Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia where the wines come from. Created by consultancy Shaken & Stirred, the drinks include a Manhattan Skyscraper – a sparkling twist on a classic Manhattan.
Freixenet Manhattan Skyscraper
25ml Bourbon
12.5ml Sweet vermouth
12.5ml Dry vermouth
10ml Maraschino syrup
3 Dashes of bitters
Freixenet Cordon Oro (or Cordon Negro)
Stir the bourbon, sweet vermouth, dry vermouth, maraschino syrup and bitters over ice and strain into a Martini glass. Top up with Freixenet Cordon Oro or Cordon Negro. Garnish with a rustic orange twist and a maraschino cherry.
Both sparkling and still wines are being recommended by drinks company Pernod Ricard UK for mixing up into cocktails for Christmas and New Year. Suggested serves include the White Christmas Sparkle.
Jacob’s Creek White Christmas Sparkle
25ml Absolut Vanilia vodka
25ml Cloudy apple juice
100ml Jacob’s Creek Sparkling Chardonnay Pinot Noir NV
Pour the vodka, apple juice and sparkling wine into a champagne flute and serve immediately.
Charlotte Ashburner, senior brand manager for Chambord black raspberry liqueur, recommends uncomplicated classics or seasonal drinks during the busy Christmas period, including hot seasonal serves such as the Hot Chambord Cider.
Hot Chambord Cider
20ml Chambord
20ml Tuaca
120ml Apple juice
40ml Cranberry juice
Heat all ingredients and serve with a cinnamon stick.
Plenty of alternatives to traditional mulled wine are being promoted this winter such as the Mulled Apple & Winter Spice for Harveys Bristol Cream sherry.
Mulled Apple & Winter Spice
Serves six
200ml Harveys Bristol Cream sherry
500ml Pressed apple juice
6 Cloves
50g Vanilla sugar
Slowly warm the sherry, apple juice, cloves and vanilla sugar in a pan for 10 to 15 minutes. Strain the liquid into a warmed two-pint or one-litre punch bowl. Garnish with apple slices and serve in glass mugs decorated with star anise.
Some delicious recipes have been created for whisky liqueur Drambuie such as a Hot Apple Toddy, a twist on mulled wine, and a Winter Spiced Cooler using cider.
Hot Apple Toddy
50ml Drambuie Original
150ml Pressed apple juice
1 Cinnamon stick
4 Cloves
20ml Sugar syrup
25ml Lemon juice
2 Orange twists
Heat all the ingredients together except the Drambuie. Add the Drambuie to a teacup or handled latte glass, then strain in the warm apple juice mixture. Garnish with a lemon slice and a fresh cinnamon stick. To make the Winter Spiced Cooler, replace the pressed apple juice with bottled apple or pear cider and use two dashes of orange bitters instead of the orange twists.
Manuel Terron, global ambassador for Japanese liqueur Midori, has created the Midori Sugar & Spice.
Midori Sugar & Spice
120ml Fresh cloudy apple juice
40ml Midori
30ml dark rum
2 dashes of bitters
Heat the apple juice and pour into a heat-proof glass or mug, followed by the other ingredients. Stir, then garnish with a large apple slice sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.
Staying with Japan, Suntory’s brand ambassador Zoran Peric has created the Yamazaki Toji, named after the Japanese season of the mid-December solstice. It is one of 24 cocktail recipes inspired by the 24 Japanese seasons.
Yamazaki Toji
50ml Yamazaki 12 Year Old whisky
15ml Mandarine Napoléon
6ml Absinthe
Brown sugar
Vanilla pod
Cinnamon
Cloves
Star anise
Orange peel
Set alight 25ml of the whisky mixed with all the other ingredients for 15 seconds. Heat the rest of the whisky in a balloon glass. Add the first mix to the balloon glass and leave flaming for five seconds. Cover the glass with a napkin to extinguish the flame.
Drinks company Maxxium UK is supporting on-trade outlets during the Christmas season by rolling out two point-of-sale kits to drive sales of Courvoisier cognac. The kit designed for stylish bars features engraved copper punch bowls and ladles as well as recipes such as a Smoking Bishop, inspired by a drink in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.
Courvoisier Smoking Bishop
25ml Courvoisier VS/VSOP
50ml Light red wine
25ml Ruby port
10ml Gomme syrup
40ml Blood orange juice
25ml Pink grapefruit juice
2 Cloves
½ Cinnamon stick
1/3 Seville oranges (sliced)
1/3 Pink grapefruits (sliced)
Sprinkle of ground nutmeg
Put the cloves, Seville oranges and pink grapefruit slices into a small saucepan. Add all the remaining ingredients, except the cognac and nutmeg. Bring the mixture to a low simmer, being careful not to boil, stirring in the Courvoisier cognac as you go. Serve in a mug or cup with an orange slice and a sprinkle of nutmeg.
Winter cocktails are on the menu at Michael Neave Kitchen and Whisky Bar in Old Fishmarket Close in central Edinburgh, which was opened by young Scottish chef Michael Neave this summer. They include the Whisky Blackberry:
Whisky Blackberry
50ml Grant’s Blended Scotch Whisky
50ml De Kuyper Blackberry Liqueur
2 teaspoons of sugar syrup
25ml Lemon juice
Pour all the ingredients into an ice-filled shaker. Shake well and strain into a tumbler glass filled with ice. Garnish with a wedge of lime.
An even newer bar is Spirit Level, upstairs at Baku in Knighsbridge, London, where bar manager Andreas Tsanos has created some winter drinks as part of a creative cocktail menu including The Butterfly Flip #2, which can be served hot or cold, and the G&G Toddy.
The Butterfly Flip #2
35ml Excellia Blanco tequila
25ml Crème de mûre
20ml Vanilla syrup
10ml Framboise sauvage (wild raspberry) eau de vie
1 quail egg or egg yolk
10ml water (but only for hot version)
To make the cold version, whisk the egg to release air and add the rest of the ingredients and shake. Pour into a chalice glass. For the hot version, whisk the egg and let it rest while heating all the other ingredients up to 51C. Add the hot mixture slowly, being careful not to scramble the egg yolk, whisking continually. Garnish with a mist of orange blossom water or rose petal.
The G&G Toddy
50ml G’Vine Floraison or Nouiason
50ml Water
25ml Red wine (Malbec or Syrah)
10ml Esprit de June Liqueur
15ml Agave syrup
1 Cinnamon stick
3 Cloves
3 Raspberries
1 Lemon peel
1 Grapefruit peel
1 Blood orange peel
1 Star anise
Begin by filling a rocks glass with ice. Place a pre-heated or steamed balloon glass on top of the ice-filled rocks glass; this step prevents the glass from cracking. Add all the ingredients into the balloon glass and set alight. Rotate the balloon glass to heat up the ingredients. Prepare a second balloon glass by heating it with hot water. Once the mixture is hot, empty it into the second balloon. Garnish with a knob of unsalted butter.
Mixologist Gerry Calabrese has created a new cocktail list for his new club Baroque, which has been created next to Salvatore’s Bar at the Playboy Club in Mayfair, London. For winter, they are offering a Hot Buttered Rum.
Hot Buttered Rum
Knob of butter
15ml honey
40ml aged rum
Hot water to top up
Cinnamon stick to garnish
Place the knob of butter into a heated glass, adding the honey and rum on top. Top up the glass with hot water and stir with a spoon until the butter and honey have melted and emulsified into a liquid. Using a lighter, gently warm the cinnamon stick and add as a stirrer.
Also in Mayfair, winter drinks have been created at Bar 45 at luxury hotel 45 Park Lane by bar manager Stefano Cossio including the Peace on Earth which is a tropical rum punch with pineapple, orgeat syrup, coconut syrup and lime juice.
For Thanksgiving, he created the 1863 cocktail (pictured), named after the year when Abraham Lincoln introduced the American day of celebration for the first time. It mixes Maker’s Mark bourbon with fresh ginger, Fonseca 10-year-old tawny port, pomegranate juice and lemongrass syrup, shaken and strained into a coupette or Martini glass, garnished with a cranberry. It proved so popular that Stefano has made it available beyond Thanksgiving in the run-up to Christmas.
Berry Bros & Rudd (BBR) has developed winter drinks for its King’s Ginger liqueur including the Winter Cup.
The King’s Ginger Winter Cup
30ml The King’s Ginger
20ml Cloudy apple juice
100ml Premium apple cider
Cinnamon stick
Add all ingredients into a pan. Simmer on a gentle heat for 30 minutes and, when cool enough, serve in a brandy balloon. Garnish with a cinnamon stick.
