Forever Summer (33 page)

fizzy water

3–4 passionfruit (strained if preferred)

ice cubes

sprigs fresh mint

In a large glass jug, pour about one-third elderflower cordial to two-thirds fizzy water. Add the pulp and seeds of the passionfruit (or strain them if you prefer this pipless) and then chunk up with ice cubes, adding a few sprigs of fresh mint if you have any to hand.

Serves 6.

MINT AND LIME COOL AID

This is the perfect, sweet-sharp drink, like lemonade only more so, for a hot summer’s day. There’s nothing to stop you adding a slug of vodka, but I love this as it is, in its pure, unalcoholic state.

8 limes (or enough to make 250ml juice)

200g caster sugar

bunch fresh mint, some sprigs reserved for the jug later

1.25 litres water

ice cubes

Remove the zest of 4 of the limes using a vegetable peeler and put this, along with the sugar, mint and 250ml of the water into a saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Once it’s started boiling, turn the heat down and let the liquid simmer in the pan for about 5 minutes. Take off the heat, let cool and then strain into a jug.

Squeeze the limes to make about 250ml juice and then add, along with the rest of the water to the jug of syrup. Add ice cubes and a few sprigs of mint.

Serves 6–8.

GINGER BEER SHANDY

Purists will insist you use bitter for this, but I am too much of a girl, and like it best made with fizzy foreign lager. For that real, deck-chair bound summer feeling, drink in a reclining position, with a bulging sandwich – filling immaterial; white bread obligatory – clamped in your glass-free hand.

1 small bottle of fridge-cold lager

1 fridge-cold can of ginger beer

Pour the lager into a tall glass and then top up with as much ginger beer as you like.

Makes 1.

GINA

I don’t know where this originates or why it is so named, but I like to think it is in honour of La Lolla. The classic version uses gin; I prefer the clearer, less old-lady hit of vodka. And don’t be confined by the suggestion of crème de cassis: use any alcoholic fruit syrup you like. I often make a light and floral Peach Gina by substituting a slosh of
crème de pêche de vigne
instead.

50ml crème de cassis

25ml vodka

1 tablespoon lemon juice

approx. 200ml fizzy water

Pour the first three ingredients over ice and then top up with fizzy water in a tall glass.

Makes 1.

TOM COLLINS

A Tom Collins is a Tom Collins because the original, authentic key ingredient was a couple of shots of Old Tom gin. But this is not worth making an issue of. You could try and track it down, but I never have: just use whatever gin you have in the house instead. For me that’s Plymouth gin, but I don’t think it pays to be too rarefied about such specifications here. For me the crucial factor is all that lemony fizz, no matter how exactly you choose to spike it. And if you haven’t got sugar syrup, just spoon a tablespoonful of caster sugar into the measured out lemon juice and let both stand for 10 minutes or so until the acid’s dissolved the sugar before mixing into the rest of the drink.

50ml gin

25ml lemon juice

1 tablespoon sugar syrup

soda or fizzy mineral water

Pour the first three ingredients into a tall glass over ice, and top up with fizzy water.

Makes 1.

LEMON DROP

This is citron pressé for grown-ups: frosty-white, acid sharp and as deeply lemony as you could want.

1 lemon, peeled (see
precise instructions
if you feel it necessary) and quartered

1 tablespoon caster sugar (or sugar syrup)

50ml limoncello or other lemon liqueur

50ml Triple Sec

handful of ice cubes

Put the lemon pieces into the goblet of a blender, sprinkle over the sugar and leave to steep to let the sugar dissolve for a few minutes (if you’re using sugar syrup, just bung it all in, everything you’ve got, and blitz away) then pour in the limoncello and Triple Sec, tumble in the ice cubes and whizz away on the cocktail-shaker setting or however your blender is organised. When everything’s combined, thickened and ice-white, pour into a large tumbler and knock back.

Makes 1.

PASSIONE

I don’t know why, when I make cocktails, I start worrying about the particular quality of the individual ingredients, but I like to use Plymouth gin here. Certainly, its flavour is better – more delicately aromatic – than any other gin’s, but I won’t kid you that this is immediately detectable in this heady concoction.

60ml (4 tablespoons) gin

60ml (4 tablespoons) Southern Comfort

juice of 2 large passionfruit, sieved

lime juice

handful ice cubes

Pour gin and Southern Comfort into a large beaker, and add the passionfruit juice and a spritz of lime. Add ice, up-end another beaker on top of the glass (or use a cocktail shaker to start off with) and shake to mix, then strain into a waiting martini or daiquiri glass.

Makes 1.

JOURNALIST

I found a version of this in
Ben Reed’s Cool Cocktails
and couldn’t resist. Its name tells you everything you need to know: boozy, acerbic and packing quite a punch, this is a drink with lethal edge.

25ml gin

1 teaspoon sweet white vermouth

1 teaspoon dry vermouth (also white)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 and a half tablespoons Triple Sec

few drops Angostura bitters

Shake everything above in a cocktail shaker over ice, then strain into a martini glass. Drink and get straight to your Remington.

Makes 1.

POMME POMME

Yes, it’s a ludicrous name, but I couldn’t help myself. And anyway, this is perfect poured out of chilled jugs over a long, hot summer.

1 litre carton apple juice

15 tablespoons/225ml apple schnapps

Pour both juice and liqueur into a jug and throw in a handful of ice cubes.

To make a single glassful, just measure out 3 tablespoons of apple schnapps into a glass, toss in some ice cubes and pour over 200ml of apple juice. You should also know that this is very good – though strictly speaking requires a different name – made with Triple Sec and orange juice. Feel free to add a few slices of orange into the jug, too.

Serves 6.

PIMMS

This is English summer in liquid form. Spicy, mellow, light and refreshing, this is a reminder that in matters of food and drink, originality and innovation are so not the point.

200ml Pimms

600ml lemonade

half a cucumber, sliced

half an orange, sliced

half a lemon, sliced

1 small apple, cored and sliced

small bunch fresh mint

a few borage flowers, should you have them growing in your garden

handful fresh strawberries, hulled and halved

Mix everything together in a big jug and throw in a handful of ice. Or better make that two jugs: this is not something that anyone ever has just one glass of.

Serves 6.

CAMPARI SODA

Oh please, I know this is not something that requires a recipe – perhaps merely a reminder. When I think of summer, I think of this. I drink it, however, all the year round.

100ml Campari

200ml soda water or to taste

Pour the ingredients into a glass over ice and add a slice of orange.

Makes 1.

FRAGONARD

Think Bellini, only with puréed strawberries in place of peaches: it’s the taste of lyrical, wide-skied summer. In actual fact – which I found out long after its inception in my hands – this is known in Italy as a Rossini, but I stick stubbornly to the particular connotations of my naming.

1 bottle prosecco (or other fizzy white wine)

for the purée:

500g strawberries (hulled)

2 tablespoons crème de fraise (optional)

For 1 bottle of prosecco (or other fizzy white wine of your choice) add a purée made (in the blender or food mill) from 500g hulled strawberries and, if you can get some, a couple of tablespoons of crème de fraise. If you haven’t got any crème de fraise, that sweetly alcoholic essence of strawberry, and the fruit you’re using is not truly red ’n’ ripe, then you may need to add a spoonful or so of sugar while blitzing. Stir well and pour; I find I get about seven assorted glasses’ worth out of the above quantities.

Serves 6.

FRESH GREEN GIMLET

This takes inspiration in part from a mojito, that bar classic of the late nineties – mint, sugar syrup, lime, rum and soda – and in part from a gimlet, that intense and trad mix of vodka and lime cordial. And frankly, this child outstrips either of its parents. When I gave it to a friend to taste after making it for the first time, I had to fight to get the glass back from her.

1 tablespoon caster sugar

juice of 1 lime

small handful of fresh mint leaves

50ml vodka

a fistful of ice cubes or crushed ice

dash of fizzy mineral water (or to taste)

Spoon the sugar into a large tumbler, squeeze over the lime juice and stir to dissolve. Add the mint leaves and stab away at them in the tumbler with the end of a rolling pin; this is what’s known in the business as ‘muddling’. Add the vodka and ice, swill to mix and then top up with the dash of fizzy water.

Makes 1.

ALCOHOLIC ICED COFFEE

My father told me that I had to include a recipe for iced coffee here, and of course he’s right. He meant by this, a tall glass of cold, cold milk dappled with Camp, and I quite see his point. But I find I move more and more towards the Italian
caffe freddo
: a viscous, black shot of espresso, a copious amount of sugar added to the pot while still hot, to which you can add milk as you wish on serving. Better still, turn it into a
shakkerato
by whizzing it up when cold with a handful of ice cubes in the blender to make a milk-less but creamy-topped glass of liquid black velvet. This is an alternative, after-dinner version and all too
potabile
.

1 tablespoon coffee liqueur

50ml chilled espresso coffee