Cocktail Club

COCKTAIL CLUB COCKTAIL INNOVATION

The art of making drinks has come a long way. Technology, techniques, and ingredients available have allowed bartenders to push the envelope with their creations. Drinks World reached out to some of the bartenders pushing the boundaries and using their own innovative methods and techniques to bring a new appreciation to the world of drinks.

KURTIS BOSLEY

Group Bars Manager, Public House Management Group

ROCKMARY SPRITZ

Ingredients:

• 40ml House-made Rockmelon and Fruit Scraps Vermouth* • 10ml Four Pillars Rare Dry Gin • 15ml Fresh lemon juice • 60ml Fever -Tree soda water • 60ml Fever -Tree light tonic • 1 x Dash Grapefruit bitters Method: Build over ice and stir Garnish: Rosemary Sprig Glassware: Wine

*ROCKMELON & FRUIT SCRAPS VERMOUTH RECIPE Ingredients:

• 1L White wine of your choice (Don’t waste fresh bottles, keep unused white wine over a few days for this ingredient) • Soak Rockmelon off cuts and skin in 100ml of Eau-de-Vie for two days • Lavender • Thyme • Sage • Citrus peel (dependent on what was leftover in the bar that night) • 70g White Sugar

18TH BEET STREET

Ingredients:

• 40ml Yamazaki Single Malt 12 YO • 10ml Laphroaig 10 YO Whisky • 22.5ml Red beet & pink peppercorn shrub* • 5ml Amontillado Sherry • 1 x Bps Citrus Oleo-Saccharum • 2 x Dashes Black Walnut Bitters Method: Add all ingredients to a shaker. Add ice and shake hard. Double strain. Garnish: Red Vein Sorrel or Lavender Sprig or Elderflower (depending preference) Glassware: Vintage Wine Glass

*RED BEET & PEPPERCORN SHRUB RECIPE Ingredients:

• 4 x Beets cut into chunks • 150ml Chardonnay vinegar • 150ml Distilled white vinegar • 1 x Cup sugar • 1 x Tsp Pink peppercorns • 1 x Pinch Kosher salt Method: Add beets and vinegars to blender. Purée. Strain the purée with a fine mesh strainer. Add the mixture to sugar, peppercorns and salt to a glass bowl. Cover, and allow to steep for one day. Taste. If the pepper hasn’t come through yet leave for another day. Fine mesh strain again, bottle and store.

FREEZE DRIED NATIVE INGREDIENTS

Native freeze dried ingredients offer consistency, longer shelf life and retain all the flavour. Of particular note are Australian native freeze dried finger lime and Davidson Plum. Australian Finger Lime Caviar, based on the north coast of NSW have been supplying freeze fried finger lime caviar and the native Davidson Plum to the hospitality industry, including collaborations with Byron Bay based Brookie’s Gin and Harvest Restaurant in Newrybar.

SAM CURTIS

Beverage Manager, Harvest Restaurant, Newrybar

A WALK IN THE WOODS

Ingredients:

• 45ml Brookies Byron Dry Gin • 15ml Belgrove Distillery Apple

Hatchet • 15ml Maidenii La Tonique

Vermouth • 10ml Fingerlime syrup • 1/2 x Apple roughly chopped • 1 x Sprig rosemary • 1/2 x Fresh Fingerlime • 2 x Bps Brookfarm ‘Brothers

Blend’ nuts Method: Add apple, 3/4 of the rosemary leaves (leaving the top for garnish) and nuts to shaker and muddle. Add all other ingredients, shake hard and fine strain into coupe Garnish: Cut 5 thin slices apple. With a toothpick poke a hole through the middle of apple slices then thread rosemary sprig through the hole. Place in middle the of cocktail glass and squeeze fingerlime pieces on top of apple slices. Finish with fingerlime dust Glassware: Coupe

RED WINDS

Ingredients:

45ml West Winds ‘The Sabre’ gin 15ml Applewood Distillery Red Okar 30ml Fingerlime syrup 15ml Fresh Newrybar lime juice 15ml Sweet Davidsons plum vinegar 1 x Whole egg white Method: Add all ingredients to shaker then add egg white at last minute. Shake with ice then fine strain back into tin without ice. Discard ice then shake mix without ice. Single strain into a coupe Garnish: Harvest garden flowers and Davidsons plum dust Glassware: Coupe

TECHNOLOGY

Charlie Parker’s in Sydney’s Paddington take a top-to-tail approach to drinks and produce inhouse infusions using a rotary evaporator. From frangipani to lillypilly and even sourdough bread, Charlie Parker’s are pushing the envelope.

FUTURE CLASSICS WINNER

ALEX ARCHIBALD

Seamstress Melbourne

INSPIRATION FOR THE CREATION:

I originally came up with this drink as a riff on a blood and sand. I believe it’s got the makings of a modern classic because the specs are easy to remember, most good cocktail bars should have all the ingredients or be able to make them easily. It’s approachable but still interesting enough, and of course it’s just damn tasty!

MANGO x GREEN PEPPERCORN

Ingredients:

• 22ml Green Peppercorn infused neutral grain spirit • 44ml Dolin Blanc • 22ml Mango Verjus • 22ml Soda water Method: Pour ingredients into Champagne glass from charged iSi canister Garnish: Babies breath flowers Glassware: Champagne

SOURDOUGH GIBSON

Ingredients:

• 50ml Sourdough infused neutral grain spirit • 20ml Spring Onion

Noilly Pratt • 1 Bsp Pickle brine Method: Build ingredients in mixing glass and stir Garnish: Olive oil drops Glassware: Nick & Nora

THE BLOODTHORN

Ingredients:

• 20ml Scotch Whisky • 20ml Sloe Gin • 20ml Dry Vermouth • 20ml Fresh lemon juice • 10ml Pineapple syrup (1:1 pineapple juice: sugar) • 2 x Dashes orange bitters Method: Shake all ingredients with ice and fine strain into a chilled coupette. Garnish with a grapefruit twist Garnish: Grapefruit twist Glassware: Coupette