By Jove - it's the Handmade Cocktail Company's Hanky Panky Cocktail, presented in a 50cl bottle! Invented by Ada Coleman when Sir Charles Hawtree visited the American Bar at the Savoy Hotel and asked for something "with a bit of punch in it.” The result was the Hanky Panky! For their own version, the Handmade Cocktail Company use fantastic English dry gin, sweet vermouth and the unmistakable digestivo favoured by Alfred Pennyworth.
The concept of the ‘Vintage Cocktail’ range is simple – you get all the ingredients for a superb cocktail pre-mixed, all you have to do is pour it over ice, stir, then strain off into your glass and garnish (in this instance with a healthy slice of fresh orange). Each bottle carries a stamp showing its year of manufacture.
Perfumed Morello cherries and mixed spices, particularly ground mace. Light lavender and quince. Inviting and intensely aromatic.
Bright, juicy fruit up front, before becoming oily with notes of olives in brine, sweet cherry tomatoes and plum wine. A hint of peach develops, alongside notes of white wine and parsley.
Hints of Black Jack sweets on the finish, with notes of Oude Genever and saffron.
A curious and complex cocktail - certainly a very fine alternative to the classic Negroni.
The tasting notes are spot on - loads of cherry and a touch of mint on the nose. Cracking interpretation of one of the very best undiscovered cocktails for me.
