Mojito

The mojito is one of those drinks I'd always intended to blog, but it's taken time to build up to it. I've tasted an amazing mango variant and attempted a party version, but making a proper one at home takes some effort. A supply of fresh mint can be an almighty obstacle for starters, and that's before you've considered the crushed ice. Oh, and it helps morale if it's not raining outside. But I had to get round to it eventually, mainly because this Cuban refresher is a truly special cocktail.

Mojito

Six mint leaves
45ml (1.5oz) white rum
15ml (0.5oz) simple syrup
1/2 lime
45ml (1.5oz) soda water
Crushed ice*

Place five mint leaves and the simple syrup into a highball glass and use a muddler to gently mash the leaves to release the minty oils. Add the half a lime (slicing into four segments works nicely) and muddle some more, taking care not to shred the mint leaves (get too rough and they can taste bitter). Add crushed ice, then the rum, and stir carefully. Add soda water, and some more ice if necessary, and garnish with another mint leaf.

*For crushed ice: Put some ice cubes into a plastic bag, wrap with a tea towel and whack with a hammer until suitably crushed. Best attempted outside.

So there you go. This is a rewarding cocktail, even if - as has been written elsewhere - it's a pain-in-the-ass to make. But life wasn't supposed to be simple, right? No, it was supposed to be difficult, easy to mess up, complicated, and ultimately disappointing on an existential level. Time for another mojito, methinks.

Scrumpy

I'm beginning to get the idea now. Slightly cloudy, often still, appley (I know that sounds obvious, but have you ever tasted Strongbow?), and hiding plenty of booze behind a silky exterior. Welcome to the world of scrumpy cider.

Scrumpy in general refers to traditional ciders made in the south and west of England, taking in Devon, Somerset, Gloucestershire and Herefordshire. This one in particular, Scrumpy Cloudy Cider (7.5% abv), came from Herefordshire-based Westons, and was consumed very appropriately in an authentic Herefordshire garden (pictured above). Worryingly, the brew appeared to resemble fellow Westons scrumpy Old Rosie, responsible some years ago for what I remain convinced was the worst apple-based hangover ever to be endured by man. Nevertheless, I pushed on, in the national interest.

The label on our flagon of Scrumpy Cloudy - "matured in old oak vats for a full and fruity flavour" - recommended tilting the bottle here and there to disrupt the sediment for a properly cloudy experience. The liquid was dark orange in colour, with aromas of smoky apple and wood, while the taste was fizz-less, with a medium-dry tartness giving way to a sweeter finish.

The day was especially hot, so some of us put ice in the cider to help it down. Like Old Rosie it was deceptively boozy - apple juice with a rather agressive edge, but fortunately this time I was able to recognise when it began to tighten its grip on my person, and after a couple of glasses I knew it was time to move onto the vodka.

Daiquiri

Never mind the Gimlet, if it's a short, sharp refresher you're after on a sunny spring evening try a Daiquiri, which essentially replaces the vodka with rum.

Daiquiri

1.5 oz white rum
0.75 oz lime juice
0.5 oz simple syrup

Place ingredients into a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake well and strain into a small, preferably chilled cocktail glass and (optionally) garnish with a twist of lime peel.

Although I refuse to count out vodka entirely, I'm beginning to become more conscious of its limitations, in cocktails at least. Rum, by contrast, is growing on me.

MORE DAIQUIRI: Read the Rum Dood on this "most iconic" of rum drinks.

2023 update: The Daiquiri, effectively a rum sour, re-entered my rotation recently due to my encountering Hamilton 87 White Stache (pictured left), an aged white rum sourced from the West Indies offering amazing coconut notes.

Scotch Malt Whisky Society

SMWS
19 Greville Street
London EC1N 8SQ

Had Willy Wonka turned his back on chocolate and gone into whisky, I rather suspect he would have liked the Scotch Malt Whisky Society. Entering the London rooms of this palace of malt, for the first time, I felt for a moment like Charlie without Grandpa Joe. Forget the regular array of brands one might find at a discerning pub, this place was covered ceiling-to-floor with SMWS's very own number-coded single malts, bottled straight from the cask. Each cask tastes different, of course, which is why the Society is rather coy about revealing the identity of the distillery from which each bottle is taken. Instead, drinkers are encouraged to pick their drams from an impressively extensive SMWS menu, containing many outlandish names (Whisky-flavoured Condoms and Skunk Road-kill, anyone?) and tasting notes bordering on the poetic. Prices for a generous pour range from a reasonable £4.50 to an eye-watering £23 at the other end of the scale. Bottles may also be purchased on site.

My first experience of the Society's exciting wares had come at the inaugural session of the Whisky Squad at The Gunmakers pub some weeks earlier. This time, on my first visit to the Society's Greville Street quarters, as a guest of booze blogger Billy, our group sampled at least the following:

Pepper, Lemon and Smoke
(38.18) 59% vol, 12 yrs, from mothballed Speyside distillery Caperdonich.
Nose of vanilla and caramel. Loads of pepper and lemon on the palate, not much smoke, but plenty of chunky chocolate brownie, finishing lengthily.

Kissing a Mermaid
(26.66) 60% vol, 10 yrs, Highland distillery Clynelish.
T writes: Fortified wine on the nose, on the palate petrol and a handful of chilli-infused salt followed by toffee chews.

Ooh! Ouch! Aaah!
(4.137) 58% vol, 12 yrs.
Dark gold colour. Cured meat on the nose. Firey with sherry flavours. Add a few drops of water for toffee apple.

Onions Spring Eternal
(10.71) 55% vol, 11 yrs, Islay distillery Bunnahabhain.
Onion on the nose! Sherry-sweet finish.

Hazelnut in Every Bite
(28.20) 57% vol, 19 yrs, Highland distillery Tullibardine.
Before I knew what this was called I found mint and cucumber on the palate. After I was told the name I suddenly found hazelnut. Funny, that.

Others I could mention:
Swelling, Crashing Waves of Flavour: (53.140) 56% vol, 18 yrs, Islay distillery Caol Ila.
Soot and Ash: (72.19) 57% vol, 20 yrs. Speyside.

Despite the mightily fine whisky, and brilliant staff, I can't help but end with a quick grumble about the Greville Street premises, whose "light and contemporary" interior resembles an Ikea showroom. The website claims these pine-lined rooms are "ideally placed to mix business with pleasure", and I concede their proximity to the City means that is probably the case, but the blandly corporate hotel-bar feel suggests the scales may have tipped too far in favour of Business here.

INTERESTED? The SMWS is a members-only club, with individual membership starting at £100 for the first year, and about £40 annually thereafter. Members are permitted to bring up to three guests to any of the Society's three tasting venues, in London, Edinburgh and Leith.

Martini (1:1)

I've already dealt with the martini, here and here, but after trying the following recipe from David Wondrich's wonderful cocktail bible, Imbibe, I decided this one simply had to be blog-ed.

Dry Martini

45ml (1.5oz) gin
45ml (1.5oz) dry vermouth
Dash of orange bitters
Twist of orange peel

Pour ingredients into a mixing glass with ice. Stir well and strain into a martini glass. Squeeze a piece of orange peel over the surface of the drink.

Observant observers will notice the interesting element here is the 1:1 proportion of G to V, rather than the more common 2:1 ratio (as seen here). To stand up to such a large slug of vermouth the gin should preferably be robust (Tanqueray or Beefeater is recommended). The vermouth called for is Noilly Prat.

Crucially, or at least interestingly, the "dry" in this dry martini denotes the use of dry (French) vermouth rather than the sweeter Italian sort, as traditionally used. It does not mean hardly any vermouth, which seems to be a modern tendency, like Pop Idol or grime music.

As Wondrich writes: "Mixed like this, with half gin and half vermouth and a dash of orange bitters, the Martini is an entirely different drink to the one we know... a gentleman among cocktails."

WS#2: Flavour Map

The curse of the 'difficult second novel' is well documented, but how would the Whisky Squad fare when it sat down for its second ever whisky tasting? Very well, as it happens, which is maybe why there are more whisky drinkers in the world than there are novelists. For Whisky Squad #2, we wanted to get a sense of the contrasts in flavours and styles of this great beverage, and so reached for the Flavour Map, constructed by Diageo and whisky expert David Broom. This useful diagram places whiskies according to four characteristics: smoky, rich, delicate and light. The whiskies we tried - blind, at first, to prevent us from relying on our prejudices - were plucked mainly from the far corners of the map, giving us some useful insights into our preferred flavour profiles. The session was led, as before, by living whiskypedia Darren (the whisky guy).

Rosebank 12 (43% abv) LIGHT/DELICATE
Lowland, triple-distilled (like Bushmills!). Distillery closed in 1996.
Light straw colour, aromas of honey, vanilla and cola bottle sweets. Taste sweet, fruit, citrus.

Glenfarclas 15 (46%) RICH/DELICATE-SMOKY
Speyside. The oldest family-owned distillery in Scotland (est: 1836). Non-chill filtered.
Sweet sherry on the nose. Fizzy on the tongue, chocolatey, with a tiny bit of peat smoke.
ALSO:
Glenfarclas 21 (43%) - smooth, slightly peaty, fruity, Xmas cake.
Glenfarclas 25 (43%) - thicker mouthfeel, caramel, essence of Manhattan cocktail.

Lagavulin Distillers Edition 1993 (43%) RICH/SMOKY
Islay. Double matured in bourbon then sherry casks. 40ppm (learn about phenols here). Pairs well with blue cheese, says Darren.
Aromas of bonfire/forest fire. Thick mouthfeel. Huge and complex, peaty.

Ardbeg 10 (46%) LIGHT/SMOKY
Islay. Jim Murray's 2008 World Whisky of the Year.
Very light colour. Aroma of potent, but light, peat. Lightly salted, floral taste with more peat (higher phenol content) than Lagavulin. More complexity too?

I definitely plan to return to the Glenfarclas and the Lagavulin, my favourites of the evening, although I also feel compelled to pay a respectful tribute to the Ardbeg, for the sheer force of its personality. Good whiskies, good times.

Honey Monster

I tasked myself with creating an after-dinner cocktail for a poker night, and ended up gambling on this:

Honey Monster

15ml (1/2oz) vodka

15ml (1/2oz) vanilla-infused tequila*
7.5ml (1/4oz) Drambuie
7.5ml (1/4oz) Grand Marnier

Pour ingredients into mixing glass with ice. Stir well. Strain into a serving glass with fresh ice.

*To make the vanilla-infused tequila, take a few pods of vanilla, split them open lengthwise with a knife, drop them into a bottle of tequila and let sit for a few days, shaking the bottle now and again.

The recipe above has been slightly modified from the formula I served with the poker chips, which ended up being a tad too sweet for my taste (warning: Drambuie dominates everything, which is why I knocked it down from 15ml to 7.5ml here). The Honey Monster tastes exactly as it sounds - vanilla/honey/herbs/booze, with a sweetish finish - perfect for sipping while one slyly assembles a Royal Flush.