Last weekend we did an event – since it’s flu season upon us once again, we created a cocktail recipe to tackle that. What’s a better way to keep yourself on top of things than to throw some ginger in your vodka? Well, nothing.
Not only does it make for a fine cocktail, it also has clear medicinal perks! So, to avoid becoming bedfellows with hot water bottles and woolly socks, we present you this strange yet delicious mix of a boozy treat.
Ingredients:
2 oz. Grey Goose Le Melon
1 oz. Fresh Lemon Juice
1 oz. Ginger Syrup
2 Dashes Angostura Bitters
Ginger Beer
Take a mixing glass and combine everything other than the ginger beer. Pack it with ice, make it cold and then you shake it like a Polaroid picture. When your arm starts to hurt (and don’t worry about this, you’ll soon enough have very strong muscles – this is kinda like exercise too) it’s time to stop.
You know how all the coolest GPs recommend you to have some ice cream with your sore throat? Well, this is kinda the same, only better, so strain it over crushed ice into a highball… to really soothe that itch. Garnish with some candied ginger and a mint sprig et voila! You’re ready to defeat whatever the weather throws at you.
Before you run off to pillage the alcohol shelves of your local Waitrose… The melon variety of Grey Goose is an absolute nightmare to get a hold of, but we’re nothing if not resourceful and badly stocked supermarkets will not get in our way of a good cocktail.
You can make your own vodka infusion – take a quarter of a melon, leave it in a litre of vodka for a week and you’re there. If you want the cocktail this weekend – and you probably do – you can add a spoonful of Midori, a muskmelon-flavoured liqueur to each cocktail.
This cocktail was tailored for an event filled with some ginger loving people, but if you can’t really stomach the taste, you can just replace it with sugar syrup. The results are just as good if you replace vodka with gin, too. The world is your potentially ginger flavoured oyster. If your ginger hatred goes as far as not stomaching ginger beer either, we can only pity thee, but hey – no judgement. There are alternatives.
Pick some lavender – we got ours from an organic farm but if you must, you can get some from Colombia Road Flower Market or even your local Sainsbury’s! Muddle it together with that Grey Goose, squeeze some fresh lime and add a dash of sugar syrup. Shake it all up, pour over crushed ice, garnish with a lime twist and some more lavender and you have an equally antibacterial cocktail!
Let us know how you got on – we’re @TheBarGuysUK on Twitter.
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