With that in mind, I think it’s time to step things up. I’m going to keep posting recipes and reviews and anything vaguely mixological that catches my eye , but I’m moving the operation over to its own shiny new domain:Everything that was – and will remain – here is there. Please update your bookmarks and RSS feeds. Feedback is welcome via email and comments.

Thanks for reading, see you at the new place!

Jon

http://oldtownalchemy.co.uk/ [RSS]

In Scotland, of course, vodka is everyone’s friend. It’s been the biggest selling spirit in both on- and off-licence sales (that’s bars and liquor stores) since 2008, while Diageo’s Cameronbridge distillery produces several quadrillion litres of Smirnoff every year. As far as Scottish bartenders go, vodka should be our friend, because selling it pays our wages but it’s not.

Vodka has a bad reputation because it’s in an awful lot of terrible drinks, all the classics of the vodka-liqueur-fruit juice school. It’s telling that the drink that broke vodka in the US – the Moscow Mule – doesn’t foreground its base spirit. There is, however, one vodka cocktail that does. The vodka martini is the elephant in the room. It’s probably the most famous vodka cocktail, but the prevailing attitude among those in the know is that it’s a corrupted gin drink. However, it remains one of the most popular and enduring drinks of all time. The key thing to take from the martini is that vodka’s prefered partners are subtler and less confrontational. Pairing it with bolder flavours, like those in heavily sweetened liqueurs, pushes it to the background.

The other lesson to take from the vodka martini is that vodka can work in repurposed recipes. The trick is not to overcompensate for the lack of immediate, accessible flavour in the spirit. The basic plan, therefore, is to steal a formula and there’s few better than the original – spirit, sugar, bitters and water. This refitted Old-Fashioned uses 42 Below as the spirit because, being honest, they gave us a bottle to play about with at work. St. Germain operates as our sweetening agent, with a touch of Fee Brothers Grapefruit Bitters with a slow stir and a cranberry juice float for dilution.

Aura
60ml 42 Below Vodka
1 barspoon St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur
2 dashes Fee Brothers Grapefruit Bitters
1 barspoon cranberry juice
Stir the first three ingredients with ice for at least 45 seconds. Strain into an ice-filled rocks glass. Float the cranberry juice and garnish with a twist of grapefruit zest.

Drake’s Fortune
50ml Tanqueray Gin
25ml pink grapefruit juice
10ml St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur
1 dash Angostura Bitters
6 mint leaves

The recipe is inspired by the Victorian Mojito – basically a standard Mojito, but with gin and apple juice instead of rum and soda – but I wanted to get away from the shorthand of using crushed ice to signify summer drinks. From there, it seemed obvious to use elderflower to complement the gin and a touch of Angostura to bring everything together.

And yes, more drinks should be named after videogames.

It’s so unfair, having to go to a secluded bar and spend the afternoon tasting Pampero and Ron Zacapa.

As part of the competition, bartenders from all over town are invited to submit recipes with the top five facing off in a regional heat with a trip to Venezuala up for grabs, not to mention a spot in the UK final sometime in 2010.

Jade Sky
3 slices of cucumber
50ml Pampero Especial
25ml lime juice
10ml sugar cane syrup
3 dashes Fee Brothers Peach Bitters
1 dash egg white
Muddle the cucumber in the base of a shaker. Add other ingredients and shake with ice. Fine-strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with a cucumber slice on the rim.

42 Below Vodka. The world’s most awarded vodka, according to, uh, 42 Below Vodka and hosts of the annual Cocktail World Cup.

The Cocktail World Cup. An annual cocktail competition open to bartenders all over the world which may or may not involve shaking a cocktail while being thrown off a bridge.

In fairness, they tie you to the bridge first. Apparently.

Entries have been open for next year’s CWC since early July and the ednbrg inbox is appropriately full of reminders from both 42 Below and their corporate overlords at Bacardi, given that they close at the end of the month. The competition follows the now standard write-in/regional/national/global format, but is seemingly a little less restrictive in terms of ingredients. A lot of competitions specify a maximum number of ingredients or restrict brand usage, but the CWC seems to only request that drinks are made with 42 Below or one of their flavoured vodkas. While the Manuka Honey, Kiwi and Passionfruit vodkas are all pretty awesome, I opted to use the Feijoa, mainly because I like making my life difficult.

Feijoa is a fruit that is firmly planted in the exotic category. It has been adopted as New Zealand’s national fruit (originating from South America and named for a Portuguese explorer), looks something like a lime and tastes something like root beer. It’s a divisive flavour, like Marmite or Vegemite or anything else that ends in -mite. As for the vodka, it’s all eucalyptus and menthol on the nose, with rich herbal flavours and a smooth mouthfeel. If you’ve never tried it, it’s probably worth doing at least once.

Anyway, this one’s in the electronic post to the Vodka University.

A walk in the clouds
60ml 42 Below Feijoa
1 barspoon Acacia honey
15ml lemon juice
An eighth of a Galia melon, diced
A third of an avocado, diced
10ml sparkling water
Muddle the diced avocado with the sparkling water in the base of a shaker tin until it forms a smooth paste. Muddle the diced melon with the vodka, honey and lemon juice in the base of a mixing glass. Add this to the puréed avocado and shake with ice. Single-strain into a chilled coupette and garnish with a melon ball on a cocktail stick with a spear of spring onion.

I’ve just started a new job. After more than three years in one place, I felt it was time to seek a new challenge and so far, everything’s going well. We’re getting ready to head into the Festival – one of the busiest trading periods in the Edinburgh year – which is the perfect time to be facing a metric ton of cocktail competitions.

The next two/three weeks see deadlines for entries for 42 Below’s Cocktail World Cup, Chambord’s Hunt for Holly (supporting their sponsorship of the West End revival of Breakfast At Tiffany’s) and the Havana Club Cocktail Grand Prix. The upshot of all of that is I’ve been forced into thinking of new recipes perhaps more than usual.

Yes, life is hard.

2000 Man
45ml white rum (I used Element 8 Platinum)
20ml Navan
25ml lemon juice
15ml orgeat
1 dash egg white
1 dash La Fée Parisienne Absinthe
Shake first five ingredients with ice and fine-strain into a chilled coupette or martini glass. Using an atomiser, flame Absinthe across the top of the drink as a garnish.

Anyhow, aged cachaca worked pretty well in a twist on the traditional Old-Fashioned. How does it fare in a modified Manhattan?

Good, as it happens. Abelha Gold is aged for three years but it won’t stand up to a particularly robust style of sweet vermouth, so it’s probably worth leaving the Punt E Mes and the Dubonnet in the fridge.

Downtown Rio
50ml Abelha Gold cachaca
20ml Martini Rosso
1 barspoon maraschino liqueur
2 dashes Angostura Orange bitters
Stir all ingredients with ice and fine-strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with an orange zest twist.

Zubrowka is famously susceptible to the extremes of the Scottish summer. Appropriate cover is essential to make sure that rare creature makes it through to autumn.

There’s no better way to mark the occasion than with a drink, but I’d been having some trouble pulling things together until I spotted a carton of cherry juice in the supermarket. It’s a little bland and quite dry by itself, but add a touch of gomme and a decent measure of Cognac, et voila!

Cherry Republic
45ml Courvoisier Exclusif
30ml cherry juice
1 barspoon gomme
Stir all ingredients with ice and strain into an ice-filled rocks/old-fashioned glass. Garnish with a lemon zest twist and a cocktail cherry.

The problem is 1) doing this in a slightly less clichéd manner, and 2) without sounding like a total prick. Don’t worry, we’ve got the guys from Grammar & Syntax doing their thing and we can get things kicked off in just…a couple…of…

…And now there’s one more: cachaca.

There are aspects of the spirit that are still to be fully revealed to markets outside of Brazil and while some varieties are available in the UK, I suspect that aged cachacas are one of those categories. Abelha Gold is aged for three years in small barrels made from garapeira – a Brazilian hardwood – which gives the liquid a fantastic golden amber colour. The aroma is reminiscent of an anejo tequila – the vegetal notes are less pronounced, with hints of vanilla, cinnamon and caramel. It’s a proper grown-up spirit with a great range of flavour. Being honest, it’s the first aged cachaca I’ve spent much time with, but it’s made me eager to try more.

Federação
50ml Abelha Gold Cachaca
2 barspoons sugar cane syrup
1 dash Peychaud’s Bitters
15ml pressed apple juice
Place the bitters and syrup in the base of a rocks/old-fashioned glass. Add a couple of ice cubes and stir to thin out the mixture. Add the cachaca, fill the glass with ice and stir. Float the apple juice and garnish with an apple fan.