We’re delighted that summer seems to have unpacked its bags and settled in, but are we allowed to say that it’s a wee bit hot? We have a solution, though – delicious cooling cocktails, it is Brighton Cocktail Week, after all. You know how sometimes you just want to stay at home and get stuck into the cocktail-conjuring yourself? Well, we’ve done the rounds and picked some of our refreshing favourites so you can shake it with the best of them from the comfort of chez you.
Sussex 75
First up is a gin cocktail courtesy of lovingly crafted local brand Brighton Gin (have you seen their beautiful new bottles for Pride?).
Genuinely handmade, the gin’s botanicals include juniper, the peel of fresh oranges and limes, coriander seed and milk thistle (perfect for cleansing those livers when you’ve had one too many). It’s smooth enough to drink neat and works really well with a twist of orange, too but we really like it in this refreshing super-simple cocktail:
Ingredients
50ml Brighton Gin
20ml orange juice
10ml Cointreau
some lemon rind to garnish
Sussex sparkling wine (we love this one) to top up
Combine all the ingredients in a flute (we’d spell out Brighton with these cute monogrammed ones), top with the sparkling wine, add a twist of lemon rind garnish, et voilà!
Botanist Cup
Next up is the long, delicious and – crucially – refreshing Botanist Cup, which is served on the Salt Room‘s lovely new Bombay Sapphire botanical terrace overlooking the seafront. But for when you just want to stay in, this is the recipe:
Ingredients
40ml cucumber-infused Bombay Sapphire (thinly slice a medium-sized cucumber and put into a large preserving jar with the gin. It takes a couple of days to infuse, but keep tasting so that you get the flavour you want. Simply strain when you like it and it’s ready to go!)
5ml St Germain elderflower liqueur
25ml lemon juice
60ml Prosecco
Vanilla cream soda to top up
Some cucumber, lemon and gypsophilia flowers for the garnish
Combine all the ingredients in a glass bowl (think a G&T bowl glass like these simple beauties) and garnish with the cucumber, lemon rind and gypsophilia.
Peach Old Fashioned
Patterns is also getting involved in the Brighton Cocktail Week action with a Peach Old Fashioned (perfect for sipping on their colourful terrace), but they’ve kindly given us the recipe so that we can try and recreate it at home.
Ingredients
5ml kumquat jam (or marmalade works too if that’s unavailable)
12.5ml peach liqueur
2 dashes Angostura Bitters
35ml Canadian Club Whiskey
Mix the jam (or marmalade) with a dash of water and add the other ingredients. Pour into a rocks glass with ice and Fanny’s your aunt, you’ve got the perfect twist on an Old Fashioned.
Lynchburg Lemonade
We’re rather partial to a bit of whiskey, so we asked the guys at Jack Daniels for a refreshing summer recommendation and we rather like what they came up with. It’s lemon-y, refreshing and pretty darn delicious if our effort is anything to go by.
Ingredients
35 ml Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey
15ml triple sec
lemonade to top up (we like this one)
lemon for garnish
ice cubes
Add cubed ice to a highball glass. Pour the JD and the triple sec over the ice. Then top up with chilled lemonade. For the finishing touch, add two slices of lemon. Alternatively, if you’re feeling super-lazy *waves* or just don’t want to shell out on ingredients you might not use again, you can just buy the cocktail in can form. Easy peasy Lynchburg Lemonade squeezy.
We know what we’re doing this weekend…
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