10: Cocktails at home

Ten years of staying

in better Shaking things up at home. By Kitty Finstad

Stir the swizzle stick of memory over a decade of drinking and, oh my, how things have changed. In London 2011, my husband and I were haunting sultry speakeasy-style downstairs bars like Hawksmoor Spitalfields, slavering over the filthy bar snacks and wondering how many Shaky Petes would even out too many Tobacco Old Fashioneds. We were also dressing up (heels! hair! makeup!) and sliding into a banquette at Bob Bob Ricard, fingers ready to ‘press for Champagne’. Over the years we sipped Pornstar Martinis at The Hoxton, Breton cidres at The French House and mortgage-busting, multiingredient masterpieces at the Beaufort Bar.

Along the way, before those going-out habits became no-go in 2020, we started to stay in, read up and stir our own. Bingewatching seven seasons of Mad Men – twice – probably nudged us in that direction. The ever-present drinks trolley in Don Draper’s office and suburban home, stacked with the spirits du jour (Canadian Club, Smirnoff and Drambuie, mainly) whispered, “Go on… get some ice and start clinking.”

So we did. My muse was a dusty but wellpreserved copy of Esquire’s Handbook for Hosts (1954), a treasure hunted since the 90s and finally unearthed in a village in Devon for £2 in 2003. Charmingly of its time, it’s a mid-century compendium of entertaining etiquette, spirited storytelling and some frankly absurd recipes no home host would dream of serving today. If anyone can tell me how to precisely measure a pony of gin, I may yet attempt a Prairie Chicken (1 pony of gin, 1 egg in a claret glass, pepper and salt). Or not.

Our open-plan kitchen/dining/party area was a model of uncluttered surfaces; there would be no blender, no more than two shakers, one jigger, one cocktail spoon and a handful of kitschy swizzle sticks in this home bar. So rather than muddle our mise en place with the paraphernalia required for fizzes, cups, punches, slings and juleps, we let our minimalist aesthetic guide us to mastering or reimagining a handful of classics. A friend gifted me The Savoy Cocktail Book (revised edition, 1965), which I turned to for my first Negroni at home. Refreshingly simple when mixed precisely into a chilled glass and served with a thin slice of orange. Nailed it.

Negroni perfected, the experimentation began. Different gins. Different vermouths. And vermuts. My husband ‘invented’ the Springoni – with lemon instead of orange and a trimmed spring onion as a swizzler. “It makes it a year-round, day-or-night drink.” True, I’d always thought of the Negroni as an autumn/winter indulgence. Why not?

Whatever next? How to elevate such perfection? Better ice. We’d watched bartenders expertly carve crystal-clear ice from their miniature glaciers in Berners Tavern and beyond. Deposit perfectly formed, nearly invisible rocks into Rocks glasses. We wanted a piece of that at home. Cue our very own Clear Ice Project. Many YouTube lessons and one mini coolbox later, we too were harvesting clear ice from our own freezer. A weekly ritual involving a wooden rolling pin, a filleting knife and the occasional expletive-laden outburst when a rogue chunk hurled itself onto the floor. Another success. No more cloudy, residuerich Thames-water ice for our home serves.

During periods of self-imposed abstinence (yes, we’ve Dry January’d and Sober October’d many times), we tended not to go down the mocktail route. We figured they were a gateway back off the wagon. Then some friends popped round with a couple of Seedlip NOgronis. We’d been pretty snobby and suspicious about non-alcoholic spirits before, but the NOgroni delivered. Since then we’ve found a couple of no- and lowalcohol beers we love (Erdinger Weissbräu and Brewdog’s Nanny State and Punk AF) to make our Monday through Thursday abstinence routine a bit more palatable.

The same friends also gifted our first set of pre-mixed cocktails during lockdown last Christmas and New Year. A trio of seasonal serves from Tayēr + Elementary arrived by post. A Pine Martini, a Mince Pie Negroni (of course!) and a Gingerbread Old Fashioned. Chilled and poured over carved cubes from our Clear Ice Project, and with just the right lighting and music, it felt not like a lockdown, but a joyful, celebratory lock-in. Imagine that 10 years ago…

Having never ordered a takeaway meal in over 20 years, I could have been much less approving of the pre-mixed cocktail as a category. But unlike its supermarket readymeal equivalent, this new breed of smallbatch, highly crafted drinks feels like a luxurious treat, not a dirty little secret. And there are so many new, creative makers popping up, responding to the way we live and entertain now – it’s not that we’ve stopped going out altogether, but we have started staying in better.

And the products are getting better and better. Knowing my fondness for premium spirits, another friend recently sent a gift box of fine flavoured and classic vodkas and gins from Fortnum & Mason. Beautiful packaging, lovely labels, all on display on our home bar – a sleek 1960s radiogram. I’m saving those for a virtual drinks do, Difford’s Guide in hand. They deserve a thoughtful, sophisticated serve. Not my usual Negroni.

We left London for Edinburgh a few months ago, and our home bar has predictably grown to include more whiskies. An akvavit from Orkney. Gins from Loch Lomond, Speyside and right here in the capital. So much to explore on our new doorstep. The freezer here is too small to fit the coolbox. But the tap water? So soft that it makes clear ice without any help at all. Slaínte!

“My muse was a dusty but well-preserved copy of Esquire’s Handbook for Hosts (1954), a treasure hunted since the 90s and finally unearthed in a village in Devon”