Naked Eve

Introducing Naked Eve

Introducing Naked Eve; Exclusive to The Star, one of The Polizzi Collection hotels The Star becomes the first hotel in England to serve botanical infusion drink Wild Eve Recipe No.1 Award-winning Apothecary and herbalist, Amanda Saurin, is excited to announce her newly launched ‘magic in a bottle’ Wild Eve Recipe No. 1 is now served at The Star in Alfriston, at the foot of the South Downs, and will soon be available throughout the entire Polizzi Collection. Incomparable to anything else on the market, Wild Eve is well thought out, rich and as intense as an alcoholic drink. It has heat, length, and real complexity with that moreish desire to keep on sipping. This innovative, small-batch non-alcoholic drink is handcrafted from an exclusive selection of organic flowers, fruits, leaves and seaweeds, hand foraged on the Isle of Harris, in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. With the most extraordinary set of plants at the team’s disposal from the mountain, machair meadow and sea, Amanda has used her learning from years of thinking, testing and coming to understand the best ways of extracting flavour. It draws on decades of acquiring plant knowledge, understanding plant medicine and a theory that plants, like essential oils for perfumery, can be categorised into top, middle and base notes to construct something really exciting.

The Star, named the best hotel in the South East by The Sunday Times. underwent an extensive renovation with mother and daughter duo Olga and Alex Polizzi at the helm. The Star is a striking Grade II Listed 16th-century building in the medieval village of Alfriston, that reopened in June 2021 after an extensive renovation, The 30 bedrooms have been designed in Olga Polizzi’s style, using contemporary furniture and local antiques, English wallpapers and fabrics by Richard Smith, with splashes of vibrant colours and textures. The restaurant, with its own inner courtyard for warm weather dining, serves simple, unfussy dishes with a focus on clarity of flavour, and the ever-changing seasonal menus utilise the abundance of exceptional Sussex produce.

Alex Polizzi shall be taking Wild Eve Recipe No. 1 to the two other hotels in The Polizzi Collection, Hotel Endsleigh and Hotel Tresanton, soon where the Naked Eve will also be served. Available Now £8

See the Wild Eve website Wild Eve Harris (wild-eve.com) The Star Hotel: The Polizzi Collection

Ingredients:

• 25ml Wild Eve • 25ml Apple Juice • Soda Water

Naked Eve Recipe

The Process of making Wild Eve Recipe No. 1 The small local team that creates Wild Eve require time, skill, and a vigilant eye to spy the perfect picking stage – often abandoning their work to rush out on a fine day to collect the harvest. The weather on Harris makes the process particularly challenging, the plants are slower to emerge from the cold ground, slower to reach maturity and then much faster to dash to seed. Besides the challenges, the weather on Harris is enchanting and crucial to the premium finish. The water is amongst the softest in Europe which allows the flavours of the foraged ingredients to develop without interruption. From the wild roses growing on the land to the sugar kelp hand-dived in the pristine waters to the chamomile and oats growing on the croft and the chilli plants that fill the windowsills, each of the botanicals are vital. Drying the botanicals is a game of cat and mouse – the sudden rain requires quick-release pegs to grab seaweeds off the line before dampening and delaying the sugars’ defining moments. Some plants require weeks of careful management to bring out the full flavour profile, some need to be cut small by hand to capture the taste, and others need heat or smoke to reveal themselves. Wild Eve is a dance with nature, born out of decades of learning and experience, captured in one wonderful drink. The extracting processes are slow, gentle, and considered, where each plant is handled carefully and respectfully. This means Wild Eve will not be found anywhere demanding volume production including large supermarket chains. Instead, Wild Eve is a boutique, created in small, sustainable batches, to be purchased directly with the distillers or through carefully selected stores that share their ethos. Wild Eve No. 1 Tasting notes The Nose: These are pleasing but fleeting – Grapefruit is at the forefront giving an instant brightness as Wild Eve is cultivated with only the peel which contains the precious oil and all its key benefits. The Palate: Then come the middle notes, the heart of the drink – these are the warm, comforting, tastes. The florals of honeysuckle rose, and chamomile gives way to the fruity sloe, then arrives the spicy juniper and the warming oat. The Base Notes: Finally, the enduring scents and flavours that give the length – the heat of the chipotle, the earthiness of gentian, ashwagandha and bogbean and that little umami pop of the sea that Sugar Kelp always offers.

Wild Eve Amanda Saurin and her husband Julian have been united by love and marriage for 36 years, bringing up their five children as they travelled the globe. After growing up in Scotland, Amanda studied law and then trained as a ceramist in Southampton, a teacher in Wales, and finally qualified as a Homoeopath in Sussex. Amanda has since studied the landscape across her homes in the UK and Cyprus whilst looking for a herbal path to a healthy lifestyle. Whilst working with plants, Amanda became particularly interested in making herbal tinctures. In 2014 Amanda set up A.S Apothecary with a seed to serum ethos. From 2015 she started working with the Isle of Harris Distillery using local botanicals to develop natural drinks and skincare for the brand. Amanda and her family made the leap to move to the Isle of Harris in 2019 when she purchased Temple Deli and Bakery on the island and developed the menu incorporating the local botanicals. Wild Eve came into fruition out of her 36 years of learning and experience with natural perfumery, putting it all into one carefully crafted non-alcoholic drink. It has taken Amanda several years of honing and perfecting, foraging, and then growing the right plants to make Wild Eve so truly special.

Benefits and Nutrition Per serve Wild Eve has exceptionally low overall sugar 4.4, of which Fructose 2.1, and Glucose 2.3. Typical values per 100mls: 0% Abv, Energy 83kCal/351kJ Fat <0.5 Protein 0.5 Fibre <0.5 Carbohydrate 20.1 Total Sugars 17.7 of which Fructose 8.4 Glucose 9.2 Sucrose 0.1 salt 0.

Balsamic Chicken, Tomato and Cucumber, and onion salad

One of my favourite dishes this salad is light, quick and easy It features chicken strips, ripe tomatoes paired with cucumber, onion, and basil and a super simple dressing that can't be beaten!

Ingredients

• 5 Roma tomatoes or a mix of tomato varieties like cherry, heirloom, etc…

• 1/4 red onion

• 1/2 a large English cucumber

• fresh chopped basil – as much as you’d like!

• 1 Chicken fillet skinned and sliced into bitesize strips

• Balsamic Vinegar drizzling and cooking (approx 4 TBSP)

• 1 TBSP of Olive oil

• 1 lemon, squeezed for juice

Method

First, cook the chicken in the Olive oil over a medium heat, drizzle in 2 TBSP of Balsamic Vinegar while cooking season with a little salt and pepper, chop those veggies! Cut Roma/plum tomatoes in half lengthwise then horizontally into slices. If adding cherry/grape tomatoes to the mix, slice in half lengthwise. Slice Cucumber, into horizontal stripes, Chop or slice onions Chop basil into ribbons. Toss the chicken and veggies in a salad bowl, then Squeeze juice from lemon and drizzle all over then toss once more to promote even distribution. Drizzle with the remaining balsamic vinegar and Serve with some fresh bread