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Join is in making two absolute classic cocktails - a Bloody Mary and a Margarita.
In case you missed this session live over on Facebook you can watch via the link below. If you'd like to make along as you watch here's what you'll need:
Here's' what you'll need for Dan's Bloody Mary and Margarita
Bloody Mary Recipe
50ml Vodka
dash Tabasco
dash Worcester Sauce
pinch Salt and Pepper
dash Red wine
Tomato Juice
Crispy bacon and gherkin
Method
1. Fill glass with ice
2. Add vodka, Worcester, Tabasco (to desired heat), salt and pepper and red wine
3. Top with tomato juice
4. Pass the drink slowly between your glass and the shaker to cool it but not dilute it too much
5. Place back in your glass and garnish with crispy bacon and gherkin - a hangover cure for sure!
Margarita
37.5ml Tequila
12.5ml Triple Sec (or any orange liqueur)
25ml Lime
12.5ml Sugar syrup
Method
1. Place all ingredients in your cocktail shaker
2. Top shaker with ice
3. Shake hard
4. Pour in to a rocks glass if you like to drink it over ice or strain in to a margarita glass if you prefer it straight up.
5. Garnish with a wedge of lime. Rim your glass with salt (optional).
Here's what you'll need for Nick's original masterpieces:
Salted Caramel Treacle/Old Fashioned (unbelievable drink, your dinner party secret weapon)
50ml Matusalem Grand Reserva 15
20ml salted caramel syrup
25ml cloudy apple juice
Cuban Popcorn Spitfire
50ml Popcorn-butter washed Matusalem Platino
20ml Fairtrade Sauvignon, Demerara & Honey Syrup (because I didn’t have enough honey)
25ml lime
Ingredient Recipes:
Salted Caramel Syrup:
- Put a cup of sugar and a cup of water in a pan.
- Heat and stir almost constantly for….15mins to half an hour ,REALLY slowly. Do. Not. Take. Your. Eyes. Off. It.
- You are watching for a magic moment when it quickly turns from dark, molasses black to amber in colour.
- Take it off the heat, stir in another cup of warm water (just so it doesn’t spatter), sprinkle in between ½ and 1 tsp of Himalayan Pink Rock Salt (according to taste – golden rule, you can always add more later, but you can never take out) if that’s what you have in, if not, most salts are…salt and will work). Stir it in. Cool it down and bottle it.
- On the record it will last a week. Off the record think about what’s in it and apply common sense.
Popcorn-butter washed Matusalem:
- Soak 50gms (a handful) of popcorn in some delicious Matusalem Platino.
- Leave it for a bit until a) it tastes like popcorn and b) you want to crack on (let’s say an hour).
- Strain off the popcorn bits. I use a jelly bag, muslin cloth or a coffee-filter work too. Maybe an old tshirt (as long as its clean)
- TRICKY BIT – clarified butter. Warm 50 gms or so (about a 3rd of a block) in a pan. SLOWLY (don’t burn it). Use a spoon to skim off the white bits that float on top, until ‘clarified’
- Chuck if in with the rum. Stir theatrically.
- Clingfilm it if you like
- Freeze until it’s…frozen (anything from half an hour to never, depending how good your fridge is)
Sauvignon-Honey Syrup:
- Add half a bottle of (Fair Trade) Sauvignon Syrup to a pan (if you want to have a glass or two in the meantime, otherwise chuck the full bottle in. Add the same ratio of honey (or run out of honey like I did and substitute demerara sugar). - Some people like it made 2:1 sugar to water, other 1:1. Golden rule is needs to be sweet, being a syrup.
- A lot of bartenders like to over-egg how technical and exact a science all this stuff is. It’s not really for your purposes, Just have a go! Unless you break my only golden rule and burn it, it will work out fine ????
A couple of choice ‘home-made ingredients’ like this in your fridge will make you the envy of your cocktail-loving pals.
Once you have them, the drinks themselves can be smashed out in 30 seconds, as you will see….
If you missed the live session you catch up now below