Ginvent

Alcoholic Architecture

Back at school there was a rumour that if you snorted tequila you’d get much drunker much quicker but wouldn’t be sick and wouldn’t get a hangover.  I remember a guy called Ian trying it at a house party once with a bottle of Jose Cuervo, throwing up a lot shortly afterwards and looking decidedly ropey in the morning.  To be frank, I don’t think it was the nasally ingested liquor that did for Ian, I think it was more likely the Foster’s six pack from a local off licence and that he’d downed on an empty stomach as soon as he’d arrived and the half bottle of Lambrini he’d sunk over the next half hour with the girl he was trying to get off with.  But anyway, I digress – that was the first time I recall being (un)reliably informed that ingesting alcohol other than through your gob would have the desired, inebriating effect. 

It was also, until very recently, the last – and that comes as no surprise.  However, a couple of weeks ago an email dropped into my inbox informing me that someone else was giving this concept a go.
Of course, it was the chaps behind Bompas & Parr – whose projects range from a jelly version of Heathrow Terminal 5 to a cityscape of lost London architecture made out of biscuits by way of a Parliamentary Waffle House and a glow-in-the dark Cornetto – that are spearheading this.

Their latest project is called Alcoholic Architecture.  I am not entirely sure how to describe it – other than a room full of gin. 

I’ll explain.

Alcoholic Architecture is based in the former Banana Store restaurant (and, indeed, store) near Borough Market.  Avid readers of this blog may recall it as the location of my stag party, oddly enough, which is alas no more. 

Book your tickets (hurry to get the last few) and get there on time.  For health and sobriety reasons you are limited to an hour in the room (which actually works out as a lot less) so don’t be late.

A funny monk shows you inside, and you work your way into the belly of the building, through spookily lit and gothic-ly decorated corridors.

Soon you find yourself in the bar, having first donned a plastic mac.  Trust me, this is essential – you will get very damp otherwise. 

The drinks are rather predictably unpredictable.  I opted first for a Mystery Mead, a combination of mead (surprise surprise), antica formula, sweet vermouth, honey, lemon and rhubarb bitters.  Greg went for a gin and tonic, because he’s a little Tory like that – except here it’s made with frankincense-smoked gin (although it tasted, apparently, like a G&T).

Then you make your way into ‘the room’ - or cloud as they would (quite justifiably) have it.  This is the main attraction of the night. 

And cloudy it is.

Basically, it is a room full of gin.  By which I mean literally full of gin and tonic – a G&T mist, to be precise, made from Beefeater gin, concentrated tonic and spring water.  It’s then turned magically into a thick fog and pumped, in enormous volumes, into a small room.

It’s incredibly thick.  It’s sort of what I imagine old the London smogs that people talked about were like.  The room is – actually, I have no real idea how big the room is.  There seemed to be a lot of people in there, but there was no way of judging how long it was from one end to another because you cannot see from one end to another.  The fog is so thick, in fact, that you struggle to make out the big light installations at the other end of the room – the light itself becoming obscured by the mix. 

It’s a surreal experience.  No real concept of time or space or sound.  It’s pretty cool.

It’s also pretty damn tasty.  The idea is that you ingest the cocktail through your nose, mouth, lungs and – yes – the mucus coating of your eyeballs.  Your eyeballs.  This is eyeball-ingested booze.  But honestly, as you are there breathing it in you cannot avoid the taste.  It’s pretty tempting to start sucking it down, in fact, particularly once you get near the booze vent at the far end of the room.

We also had other drinks over the course of the night. 

I drank the Blasphemy to Nature – a cocktail of Buckfast (ahhh, Buckie – takes me straight back to Edinburgh University…), yellow chartreuse, lemon and egg white.  This was lovely – somehow strangely like a herbaceous, spiced old fashioned – but not really.  Very good.  Greg had the Monk-y Business, a sort of daiquiri made with Old Monk Rum that left it tasting very sweet – almost toffee-like.

And, to finish off, a couple of shots.  Whilst Greg went for the whiskey based shots, mine was a mix of Campari and Frangelico – so bitter liqueur and hazelnuts, a superb (if innovative) combination.

 

 

As a word of warning, you do not get the advertised hour – not even close – as you don’t get into the bar, let alone the fog room, until about ten / fifteen minutes after the hour you’ve booked, and the call for last orders in about twenty minutes before the end of the booking – and you’re bundled our pretty sharpish after that, so in all it’s about 40 minutes.  Still, I’m not sure you need much longer that, to be honest.  And, crucially, it’s a great, fun and different thing to do.  Genuine innovation in an age of ubiquitous bars performing the same tricks to the same tunes.  Well done, chaps. 

 

I would definitely recommend giving this one a try.  Just remember to do as the sign says...

The City of London Distillery

Tucked away down a little alley off Fleet Street is the City of London's first gin distillery since to be opened since the last one shut up shop in 1825.

Now, the last time I went to The City of London Distillery, or "C.O.L.D." as they like to brand it, was some time ago and before it changed hands.  Back then it basically ran a fantastic concept of re-imagining the venerable gin and tonic: Umpteen different gins, as many matching tonics (yes, actually – multiple different iterations of a drink I had previously believed to come only in one, Schweppes-esque form) and varying garnishes – each G&T served either English style (highball) or Spanish style (big, balloon-like wine glass).  It worked really well – and gave you the opportunity to try a drink we all know like the back of our hand in a new format.

Since then the bar has been acquired, taken over and revamped.  I was expecting big changes.

Fortunately, there were few to be seen – the bar space is exactly the same as it was before, dark and cozy, low ceilinged but spacious, full of comfortable sofas and leather wingbacks, as well as a few more conventional tables.

The bar still stocks its mind blowing array of gins.

And in the corner are the two wonderful stills, there waiting to brew up the next batch of The City of London Distillery's award winning gin.

But the bar list, sadly, has changed.  Gone are the G&T creations, and in have come the cocktails.  Now, I love a good cocktail, but I loved the concept of the old joint even more – it was unique, special.  It seemed entirely right that the only gin distillery in the City should be encouraging its patrons to drink gins with tonic in a new and exciting way.  My worry was that the new management had simply swapped out the imagination of the old menu with a lazy cocktail menu serving solely their own brew.

I need not have worried.  Sure, it's a cocktail menu.  And sure, every single drink is punctuated by The City of London Distillery's own gins.  But none of that is a problem if you absolutely nail it.  Which I'm glad to say they have.

My friend, Ravi, kicked off proceedings with a COLD Distiller's Martini.  A very sound choice, I think there are few better ways of taste-testing a gin than drinking it as a martini, so uncompromising is it as a drink, with nowhere for the gin to hide.

The City of London Distillery's version contained a dash of bitters (I approve, for the avoidance of doubt) and was very dry (again, good) whilst still being light – as Ravi put it: "you feel like you could drink a lot more of them" (again, definitely, good – albeit risky).  A solid start from COLD.

Given Ravi's purist start, I had to explore a similar vein - a Martinez.  If you've not heard of the Martinez I wouldn’t let that bother you, it's not that well renown despite the resurgence of classic cocktails.  It's said to be the predecessor to the martini, although it's a lot more complex, first appearing in popular vernacular sometime between 1860 and 1880 and said to be the 'missing link' between sweet cocktails (e.g. the old fashioned, the Manhattan) and dry cocktails (e.g. the martini). It absolutely demands the sweeter notes of Old Tom gin – or even traditional genever (the Dutch predecessor of the gin we know and love) if you can get it - and is to be mixed with the red martini, not the drier white.

COLD's version combines two red vermouths – Cocchi's Vermoutb di Torino (red berries, menthol, herbs and spices) and Punt e Mes (bitter, quinine), as well as maraschino liqueur and bitters.  The effect was a slightly medicinal taste, albeit refreshing - although I can see why, at least as a pre-prandial – the martini outlived the Martinez.

Round two: Ravi went for the Sunflower – a cocktail I believe created by Sam Ross, mixologist at New York's Milk & Honey, Little Branch.

It's a curious mix – London dry gin (although ross originally uses Plymouth, I expect there's not too much to choose between them), lemon, St Germain (elderflower liqueur), Cointreau, absinthe.  Not a list of ingredients I would usually jump at, it was nevertheless marvellous.  A real zinger, both sharp and sweet, it was almost sherbet like, as if it were effervescent without actually having a single bubble in it.

My final drink was the COLD Fashioned.  Those who know me know I will always, whenever I can get my hands on one, order up an old fashioned.  I just love the things.  So I couldn’t really pass this up, being a mix of London dry gin, whiskey syrup (good innovation there, I like it), Angostura and house bitters and cucumber.

This was amazing.  I loved it.  It was hardly like an old fashioned at all (except the whiskey syrup did peek through) but was nevertheless fantastic.  It was strong but palatable, with the cucumber roaring through and complimenting the gin perfectly.  My only slight criticism is that it veered towards being too sweet – a slice of lemon might have balanced it more perfectly.  Otherwise, top marks.

 - GrubsterBoy -

Pomegranate Cocktail

For my birthday I got given a pomegranate.

OK, this sounds a bit odd.  I recognise that.  I got given other stuff as well, just so we're clear.  But it was a majestic pomegranate.

See?  Beautiful.  Who wouldn't want that pomegranate?

After having eaten about a third of it with a spoon (it was enormous) I was keen to do something other than munch on the seeds.  So I decided to make cocktails.  This post, and Thursday's, charts those two drinks.

First up is A Pomegranate Cocktail.  Most people I suspect would call this a pomegranate martini.  I, on the other hand, am trying to lead a charge against the grim practice of naming any martini-less drink in a cocktail coupe a 'martini', so I've gone with something even more boring.  This drink is dry as a bone but very refreshing nevertheless.  If you wanted it less dry you could sub the gin for vodka, but you'd lose some of flavour.  It's a good pre-prandial.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp pomegranate seeds
3-4 stalks mint leaves
75ml London gin
Dash Angostura bitters

You'll also need a cocktail shaker and plenty of ice.

1. First, let's have a quick chat about peeling a pomegranate.  Basically, you want to exclude all of the whitey-yellow stuff, including the thin membrane that runs between most of the seeds.  This is time consuming and messy, as you'll end up inevitable spraying juice everywhere, but it's totally worth it because the nod-seeds bits are incredibly bitter.  So do it carefully.

2. Scoop one tablespoon of seeds into the cocktail shaker and fill about a third full with ice.  Add another spoon of seeds and more ice.

Close the shaker and shake vigourously.  This bursts all the little seeds.  I do it this way because the seeds are also quite bitter and dry, so to avoid them overawing the drink you want to burst the little red pockets of juice without crushing the seeds.

3. Open up the shaker and add the mint, gin and the bitters.  Note that this is strong – effectively a triple measure – and you should really stick to just one.  It's a martini-style drink, though, so always likely to be punchy.  Close the shaker again and shake until ice cold.  Strain into a cocktail glass.  Garnish with a mint leaf and drink right away, whilst chilled.

 - GrubsterBoy -

Vesper Martini (Handmade Cocktail Company)

Most kids dream of finding Scaletrix cars or G.I. Joe in their Christmas stockings.  I dream of getting bottles of ready-mixed cocktails.  Luckily, this year, my dream came true.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the Vesper, courtesy of the Handmade Cocktail Company.

If you're going to be thoroughly cynical (something I am wont to be) it's effectively nothing more than a bottle of gin, vodka and vermouth mixed together, bottled and shipped out to those gullible few who ardently believe that the whole is greater than sum of the parts – and who are happy to pay a premium for that whole.  If you're being cynical.

The problem with that analysis is that the cynic really is wrong here.  Sorry, just plain wrong.  Because this is truly lovely stuff.

The Handmade Cocktail Company's Vesper is one of the best I've had – genuinely.  With great ease and simplicity, I could be back in Christopher's – or any other high end cocktail bar for that matter – sipping at what is, without a doubt, a fantastic martini.  The ease and simplicity are factors I can't, in all honesty, ignore: all you have to do is fill a pitcher with ice, add an overly generous glug of liquor, stir (or shake, if you want to go really OO7), and pour.  Add a twist if you're feeling up the task (oh the strain!) or an olive or two if you're feeling rambunctious.

If you've watched the film (or, better still, read the book – it's the first and the best) of Casino Royale you'll know how the drink came into being.  Bond turns to a waiter and orders thus:

"Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?"

Brought alive in the fantastic film adaptation…

The Vesper is therefore unique in being neither a gin martini (or just 'a martini', as I’d have it if I had my way) nor a vodka martini – it's made from both.  Here they offset each other nicely – the gin shines through, but is not overpowering; the vodka gives it that slight oily texture that (in this context) works.  From its colour, I’d say that there's plenty of vermouth in there, but fear not: this is still a dry martini, without a doubt.

I've no idea what the gin or vodka – or the vermouth, for that matter – are.  And I'm not sure I care.  Bond is quite specific, true, but mixing a modern day Vesper is impossible: Gordon's is much weaker than it was (although pick up a bottle in Duty Free next time you're wandering through the terminal – Gordon's Export Strength is reputedly what it used to be), whilst Kina Lillet has ceased to exist.  There's a lot of stuff out there on the internet saying use Lillet Blanc, Kina's supposed predecessor, but be warned: close research suggests that it's actually very different.  The point of this?  Well, I guess it doesn’t much matter anymore whether the authentic ingredients are used, all that matters is this: what the Handmade Cocktail Company have put together is magic.

The Vesper – and all Handmade Cocktail Company products - is available through Master of Malt  (who appear to be the guys who also run the Times Whiskey Club – there are just too many similarities).  It seems pretty hard to get hold of elsewhere, so I'd start there if you're keen.

I'm a total convert to the Handmade Cocktail Company and its range of drinks.  I am chomping at the bit to try their Old Fashioned – will keep you all in the loop when I do.

Until then, get yourself a bottle of Vesper.  Stir over ice and serve straight up with a twist of lemon peel.  Sit back and enjoy, Mr Bond.

- GrubsterBoy -

Sloe Gin

It's properly November now.  Winter in the air, temperatures dropping, the heating is properly on (yes, it needs more than an extra jumper), hot drinks are de rigueur,  Christmas lights are blinking into action, and we’ve had the first frosts of the year.

 

What's that you say?  First frosts?  Can only mean one thing: sloe-gin-making-season is upon us.

 

 

Making sloe gin – in fact, making any kind of liqueur, pickle, jam, chutney, conserve, etc – I find remarkably satisfying.  There's something so wonderfully homey, so fantastically back-to-basics, down-to-earth about using some ancient and time honoured tradition to preserve flavours and fruits, creating a whole new concoction from the raw materials you have to hand at the time.

 

A few weeks ago I did damson gin.  This recipe is basically the same, albeit with sloes and a little less sugar.  Both recipes are adapted from the Cottage Smallholder blog, which is fantastic and a must-read for anyone looking to make fruit infusion liqueurs. 

 

What's more, this has been a bumper year for sloes.  We wandered off to a blackthorn bush we know of nearby and found it positively drooping under the weight of all the fruit – the amount I've made was not the total of the bush's produce; it was the amount picked by the time the pickers got fed up.

 

 

Ingredients:

 

450g Sloes
75ml Gin
150g Sugar
Small handful of blanched almonds (Sadly, GG is allergic to nuts, so I left this out – but it's generally accepted that this brings a touch of magic to sloe gin.  Also, you can add three drops of almond essence on bottling, if you prefer.)

 

1.5 litre kilner jar for steeping

 

First thing first – I just made the requisite amount from the sloes I had (1,456 grams...) so the pictures show a quantity far outstripping the amounts above.  I just keep the proportions the same.  Second, this will produce a less sweet and sickly concoction.  If you like it sweeter, taste it after straining and add sugar to fit your preferences. 

 

Second: Choice of gin is not too important.  Don’t go for really, really cheap gin – it's flavoured artificially – so what's the point in making flavoured gin if all you're doing is masking artificial flavourings?  But don’t spend too much on it.  I generally use supermarket brand gin, which is good enough (although having said that, it's probably artificial...).  I also had a rummage around the spirits cupboard and found quite a few almost-empty bottles to use up.  Someone will probably say you shouldn’t go mixing gin, but meh.  Also, vodka works equally well with both recipes – last year we made damson vodka, not gin – but we went for gin this time around.

 

 

1. Pick your sloes.  As ever, please don’t go stealing fruit from other people's trees – you never know whether they plan on doing exactly the same thing, and there's nothing more depressing than going to a carefully nurtured patch only to find that someone's nicked all your fruit.  Just ask the landowner – you can even offer a bottle of the finished product by way of payment, if you're feeling generous.

 

Sloes are seriously beautiful fruit, too. 

 

 

And perfect for Instagram-ing...

 

 

Before you go any further, now's a good time to clean them thoroughly.  Pluck out their little stalks and remove all the leaves.  I forgot to do this, and it turned into a bit of a nightmare later on.  Remember, if you leave this stuff in it will infect the flavour of the finished gin.

 

2. Freeze the sloes overnight.  This does one thing with two bonuses: It the freezing juice bursts all the little cells inside, leading to: One, the release of more juice; and two, it simulates the frosts, breaking down the cellulose inside which (I understand, although only vaguely) improves the flavour.  This year the sloes came early, so I couldn’t really wait until they'd been properly punished by the frosts.  Fiona at Cottage Smallholder ran an experiment to see what produced the best sloe gin – sloes frozen by the frost, sloes frozen in the freezer, or sloes unfrozen altogether.  The result was the frosts, but the freezer in second.  So unless you're in a position (a) second guess what the weather might do; and (b) be on hand to pick them as soon as the frosts have arrived, this method seems the best bet.

 

I simply packed them all into freezer bag and lay flat in the freezer for overnight.

 

 

They came out looking fantastic.  You can almost taste the wonderfully, Christmassy spirit already. 

 

 

 

Whilst they're frozen they're like little marbles – they're the right size, and they sound, look, feel and roll like little marbles.  Ever so cool.

 

3. Defrost them thoroughly.  Laying them flat on a baking tray helps speed this up. 

 

4. You need to prick your sloes.  Some people say that freezing them does this for you, but I'm not really satisfied with that, to be honest.  So get out a cocktail stick (or several), put on an apron and get picking.

 

They are squirty little blighters, so be careful – don’t do this kind of work over an antique table whilst sitting on a cream coloured sofa.  Like we did.

 

 

Once you're done, you should have a bowl full of sloes and they're juice.  Don’t waste anything by washing up the bowl now.  I pour a glassful of gin in there, give it a rinse, and add it to the steeping jar to capture all the – but I'm getting ahead of myself...

 

 

5. Tip all the sloes into the jar.  Add the sugar and your almonds (if using them).  Pour the gin over the top.  Keep the bottles – you'll see why below. 

 

 

Seal and give it a shake.

 

 

6. Now go stick it in a cupboard, shaking daily for the first week or so, until all of the sugar has dissolved. 

 

7. Leave it alone.  Seriously.  This brew needs a good six months, minimum.  Leaving it too long will ruin the flavour, sure, but that's unlikely to happen until they've had a year or more. 

 

8. At the end of the steeping time, strain and bottle (told you you'd need those bottles).  Strain it through a fine cheesecloth or muslin.  Don’t be tempted to squeeze the bag – it won’t do any good, and will only add sediment, which you don’t want.  If you have the time, leave it to drip overnight.

 

I actually did last year's batch a few weeks back, so here are some pictures of that process.

 

After ten months in a cupboard...

 

...strained...

...and bottled for maturation.

 

9. Now it needs time to mature – sorry, but really does.  Leave it another six months, minimum.  Remember – you're making sloe gin for next Christmas, not this Christmas.

 

10. Drink.  A fantastic cocktail is what a friend of mine calls the Sloegasm: A measure of sloe gin topped up with Champagne or prosecco or Cava or English fizz – basically, an English Kir Royale.

 

 

 

 - GrubsterBoy -

 

PS: As a quick note: This sloe gin is made by simply steeping the sloes in gin for a long time.  There is an alternative method that involves fermentation.  But I'm saving that for next year.