Right then ladies and gentlemen – for this week’s #MasterofCocktails we made a Japanese Cocktail. It’s one of those oft-forgotten classics that really does work very well indeed if made with decent ingredients.
Before we get onto that though, we need to do some prep for next week’s drink. Or rather ‘drinks’. See, with all this amazing weather we’ve been having, I’m going to show you how to make an amazing bowl of Punch.
You’ll be needing these…
(LHS for Japanese Cocktail, RHS for next week’s Punch prep)
There’s nowt better than being able to have your guests serve themselves amazing punch. If you’re quite lazy. Which I am. So the prep is quite simple really – we’re going to be making an ‘Oleo-Saccharum’. Sounds fancy, it’s just sugared peel.
The sugar rips the essential oils out of the peel as they gently macerate over the course of the week. Now you can do this in a pinch by ‘working’ the sugar into the peel, but that’s quite hard, so we’re going to use the power of ‘leaving it the hell alone’ for a week. So. Begin with 4 lemons…
Peel ’em:
And sling them into a freezer bag with about 35g sugar per lemon.
Squeeze the air out of the bag, and bung it into the fridge along with the peeled lemons (we’ll juice them next week).
There we go. Now onto the Japanese Cocktail…
List of Ingredients
- 60ml Hine Rare VSOP Cognac
- 20ml Monin Orgeat Syrup
- Couple of shakes Angostura Bitters
So. Japanese Cocktail. Start with 60ml good Cognac.
Next up, 20ml Orgeat.
Now there are a few recipes which call for Lime Juice now. I tried it, but I’m not using any. Reason being it turns the drink into a slightly shit Mai-Tai instead of the pure bittered version we’re making today.
So – final ingredient is a couple of good shakes of Angostura Bitters.
Hard shake for 20 seconds or so…
…and Strain into a pre-chilled Coupette.
At this point, ignore the other recipes you’ve read, and steer clear of the Lemon Twist. Kills the drink.
Simply serve straight up. This is a real ‘classic’ cocktail – spirit, bitters, sugar.
Enjoy!
Next week’s ingredients can be found below. Plus, erm, ‘whatever else you want’. This makes a classic gin punch but augmenting with bitters, liqueurs, vermouths, juices etc. will make it all the more delicious. All bets is off.*
Next week, you’ll be needing these…
Soda Water, Bathtub Gin, the prepped Lemons and Oleo-Saccharum (sugared lemon peel), and Sugar Syrup.
Ben
*Probably not meat though. Or custard. Okay, maybe meat.
