Food & Drink
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Let cocktail hour be-gin
Planning a garden gathering this month? Best make the drinks memorable
If you’re a gin lover and you haven’t yet sampled Hepple, you’re missing a treat. A project between chef and author Valentine Warner, renowned barman Nick Strangeway, countryman Walter Riddell, and master distiller Chris Garden, this is gin with a truly distinctive flavour profile. It’s crafted from handpicked wild juniper berries, Douglas fir from British woodland, fresh herbs like lovage, foraged bog myrtle and home-grown blackcurrants, and it’s distilled using a revolutionary triple-technique. Perfect with tonic, it’s also oh so flexible as the base of a sensational summer cocktail. Here are some of the team’s favourites.
hepplespirits.com
SUMMER CUP
Ingredients
40ml Hepple Gin 20ml Lillet Rosé 20ml fresh lemon juice 20ml blackcurrant cordial* 60ml chilled Earl Grey tea 50ml soda or tonic water *100g frozen blackcurrants • 100g caster sugar • 100ml boiling waterMethod
1. Place blackcurrants on top of the sugar in a bowl. When defrosted add 100ml boiling water and stir. Strain through a fine sieve. 2. Mix all ingredients in a large glass with ice and garnish with freshly sliced summer fruit.
NETTLE GIMLET
Ingredients
60ml Hepple Gin 25ml nettle cordial* 7.5ml lime juice *60g washed nettle tips • 300ml boiling water • 300g sugar • 10g citric acidMethod
1. Pour boiling water over nettle tips, infuse for 15 mintes, then add sugar and citric acid. 2. Stir until dissolved and strain through a muslin. 3. Shake all ingredients on ice and strain
LONG SLOE SUMMER
Ingredients
25 ml Hepple Sloe & Hawthorn Gin 25 ml Fino sherry 150 ml Indian tonic water Olive to garnishMethod
1. Fill a large wine glass with ice. 2. Add the gin and sherry. 3. Top with tonic and stir. 4. Add an olive and a bit of the brine to garnish.
LAST WORD
Ingredients
20ml Hepple Gin 20ml green Chartreuse 20ml cherry liqueur 20ml fresh lime juiceMethod
1. Shake all ingredients on ice and strain into glass. 2. Garnish with cherry, fresh mint or edible flowers.
BEES KNEES
Ingredients
50ml Hepple Gin 3tsp honey with water (3:1) 25ml lemon juiceMethod
1. Shake on ice and strain into a chilled glass. 2. Garnish with an edible flower or a strip of lemon peel.