World Cocktail Day: Try The Silver Bullet by Ivan Jordan
Jenny Jefferies has a cocktail recipe for us this month.
Get the party started with World Cocktail Day on 13 May and choose your favourite tipple and raise a glass… or two. This is a global celebration and marks the special day when the first definition of a cocktail was born 219 years ago in 1806 and was formally defined in the New York rag, The Balance and Columbian Repository.
One would think that England’s signature cocktail is the ever reliable Gin and Tonic, or the iconic Martini, which is also perhaps more popular than a jug of Pimm’s on a hot summer’s day. However, the Gimlet is a classic British cocktail with roots in the 19th-century Royal Navy and is officially England’s signature cocktail. Or so it is alleged.
The late Queen Mother was known to be partial to one part gin and two parts of Dubonnet which was apparently quaffed pre lunch on a daily basis. Other patriotic and admired favourites include James Bond’s Vesper Martini which was made popular in Ian Fleming’s 1953 novel Casino Royale… ‘very appropriate to the violet hour when my cocktail will now be drunk all over the world’ so aptly declared by Bond. The film was very nearly directed by Quentin Tarantino and starred with David Tennant; Casino Royale could have been a very different film.
The English cocktail, Bramble, features gin, lemon juice, blackberry liqueur, and syrup served over crushed ice, a slice of lemon, and blackberries; a rather appropriately named, and quintessentially English summer country vibe in a glass.
In Cuba at around 1898, an American engineer by the name of Jennings Cox, created my personal favourite, the classic Daiquiri; eight parts rum, two parts fresh lime juice and one part sugar syrup. ‘It shouldn’t taste of rum, it shouldn’t taste of lime and it shouldn’t taste of sugar. It should just taste of daiquiri’ so said Ernest Hemingway. Just clean, pure and fresh. Absolutely no need to spoil this classic with modern rhubarb or strawberry flavouring that one often sees on a menu these days. However, more rum and less sugar is welcoming and this particular version quickly became Hemingway’s famous ‘Papa Doble’.
The philosophy of cocktails is a fascinating subject in its own right and deserves an awe inspiring pedestal amongst global hospitality and British culture. Mixologists are the London black cab drivers of bartenders; revealing in-depth knowledge, sharp memory and diligent delivery.
‘Show me how you drink and I will show you who you are’ said the late Émile Peynaud; a French oenologist and researcher. This quote being a slight, profound pearl of wisdom within this tyranny and joyful hullabaloo.
To help you celebrate, please enjoy this simply exquisite and comparatively humble and lightly humorous cocktail recipe, as featured in my debut book For The Love Of The Land published by @mezepublishing
“Our recipe is a cocktail, like Silverton Vineyard itself. It is town and country, tradition and innovation, a beautiful fusion of flavours, fragrances and colours, in ebullient style.” Says Ivan Jordan of Silverton Vineyard “We cherished sunny afternoons in our Exeter allotment…bringing home food that could not be bought: sweetcorn and asparagus barely minutes old, spicy exotic salad leaves, courgette flowers, grapes from our vines. So we took our love of growing things to a new level, on our terms, on our own land.”
The Silver Bullet by Ivan Jordan
Ingredients
25ml vodka
Bottle of chilled Silverton wine
1 egg white, whipped to a froth, with 1 tsp sugar
Dash of grenadine
1 jelly bean
1 orange blossom
1 lime, zested
Method
Pour the vodka into a Champagne flute and top up with the wine, leaving half an inch to the rim. Whip the egg white to a froth with the sugar, then gently pour it into the glass to create a fluffy meringue-ish top.
Pour the dash of grenadine gently into the centre, then drop the jelly bean into the glass from six inches above, so it punctures the top and falls to the bottom, taking a stream of red grenadine with it.
Place an edible flower over the hole, and sprinkle lime zest on top. Enjoy!
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