Master of Cocktails Bathtub Ginger Beer

It’s been a pretty epic week for cocktails between the The World’s 50 Best Bars 2013 awards, where Artesian at the Langham Hotel scooped the big prize and Nightjar was the runner up, to the far-reaching London Cocktail Week 2013, where a £10 wristband gave you access to £4 cocktails at over 150 venues for 7 days!

Those who attended the latter and kept their eyes peeled may even have found themselves being treated to some rather excellent Bathtub Gin punch, courtesy of Maverick Drinks, at the ‘secret’ Farrell Speakeasy.

For this week’s #MasterofCocktails, meanwhile, we were also using Bathtub Gin, but we were making a satisfying and delicious twist on a Ginger Beer shandy…

Master of Cocktails Bathtub Ginger Beer ingredients

You’ll be needing these…

List of Ingredients

  • 35ml Bathtub Gin
  • a bottle of BrewDog Dead Pony Club
  • about half a bottle of Fentimans Ginger Beer
  • Lemon juice (of half a lemon)
  • 15ml or so Ginger Juice
  • Lemon Peel

You will be wanting a tankard for this, if possible. Mine is courtesy of my good friend The Eggman.

Master of Cocktails tankard

You know the drill by now. Into the freezer with it…

Master of Cocktails freezer

Now, first things first, get yourself a grater (a Microplane like this is good if you have one).

Microplane grater

Whip off a chunk of fresh ginger about yay-big to grate.

Ginger

You don’t need to bother peeling it – it’s clean enough.

Section of a ginger

You want about this much:

Grated ginger

Stick it into a dessert spoon, pop another one on top and get squeezing into a glass.

Squeezed ginger

You’ll end up with about 15ml-ish? Don’t worry if it’s a bit ‘bitty’. We’re straining it later.

Ginger juice

Now whip a lemon in half and squeeze the juice of one half into the glass – if you get yourself a Mexican elbow this should save you some time and effort…

Lemon juice

…although if you squeeze too hard it is possible to break both the Mexican elbow as well as the glass. (Not part of the recipe.)

Broken glass

Right, nothing to see here! Where were we? Ah yes, glass with ginger and lemon juice in it.

New glass

Sling in a glug of Bathtub Gin. About 35ml should do it.

Professor Cornelius Ampleforth Bathtub Gin

Now, grab the tankard out of the freezer. It’s made of metal so it will be cold. (Duh.)

Frozen tankard

Strain the mixture into the chilled tankard.

Master of Cocktails Straining

Carefully pour in a bottle of BrewDog Dead Pony Club (you can get these from Sainsbury’s, or direct from the BrewDog site). Pour it all in – it should nearly fill the tankard.

BrewDog Dead Pony Club

If you fancy a bigger punch (at 7.2% abv), this is very good…

BrewDog Jack Hammer

Equally if you’re after a real ‘session’ drink use this (and omit the gin)…

BrewDog How to Disappear Completely

The hop-punch is what we’re after and these 3 have it in spades.

BrewDog beers

Now top up with Fentimans Ginger Beer. You’re only going to use about half the bottle this time.

Fentimans Ginger Beer

Finally, peel a strip of lemon zest and express over the top, then discard.

Master of Cocktails expressing lemon

And there we have it. The Bathtub Ginger Beer. See what I did there? Works on 3 levels that does.

Master of Cocktails Bathtub Ginger Beer

Enjoy!

Be sure to send us photos of your efforts and creations to @MasterOfMalt on Twitter. Next week, we’re going super-simple, super-high-quality. This is what you’ll need:

Master of Cocktails next week's ingredients

Next week, you’ll be needing these…

Smooth Ambler Old Scout 7 Year Old Rye, Sacred Spiced English Vermouth, Luxardo Maraschino Cherries

As always, you can mix-a-long from 6pm on Sunday via Twitter (#MasterofCocktails), or find the entire recipe here on the blog next Monday!

Ben