The Cocktail Lovers

We continue the summer drinking vibes with some fab products to have on your radar. Such as Sipsmith Chilli & Lime Gin from their limited-edition Sipping Series, and Equiano Light, a new white(ish) rum dedicated to one of the most fascinating men in history, Odulah Equiano. From our groaning cocktail library we pick out 'The New Craft of the Cocktail: Everything You Need To Know To Think Like A Master Mixologist', a fabulous guide packed with top tips and 500 recipes from King Cocktail, Dale DeGroff.

Our bar review sees us soaking up the bright, brilliant and beautiful decidedly summery drinks created by Tato Giovanni at recently opened Sucre and Abajo and we gen up on all things tequila and mezcal with the queen of agave spirits, Ivy Mix.

What we're mixing: Piña Colada

50ml Equiano Light Rum (or white rum)

25ml Coco Re'al Cream of Coconut

25ml fresh pineapple juice

5ml fresh lime juice

Method:

Blend all ingredients together over crushed ice. Garnish with a dusting of nutmeg and three pineapple leaves.

For more from The Cocktail Lovers, including signing up for our digital and print magazine, visit our website, thecocktaillovers.com

To see the products featured in this episode, check out our Instagram page @thecocktaillovers and see their websites below:

Abajo/Sucre

Equiano

Leyenda

Sipsmith

The New Craft of the Cocktail: Everything You Need To Know To Think Like A Master Mixologist With 500 Recipes by Dale DeGroff

The Spirits of Latin America – A Celebration of Culture and Cocktails, With 70 Recipes by Ivy Mix

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The sun may not have its hat on but according to our calendar, it's summer so we're choosing our drinks accordingly.

Our product review sees us sipping the latest sunshine-centric can from the clever chaps at Empirical Spirits in Copenhagen and for when evenings draw in, we open a tip-top bottled Old Fashioned from the team at Hawksmoor London.

We go in full summer mode with this week's book recommendation, the fabulously retro, unashamedly kitsch 'Trader Vic's Tiki Party', however, our bar review is much more serious as we head to the light-filled space upstairs at Swift in Soho.

And it's destination Athens where we catch up with Vasillis Kyritsis and Nikos Bakoulis from the award-winning bar The Clumsies (proudly positioned at number three on the World's 50 Best Bars list if you don't mind!) Tune in for their expert tips on pimping up your G&T, using seasonal ingredients and making simple and delicious refreshing drinks.

Summer essential: Don't miss the Luxardo Secret Piazza running in the delightful courtyard at Hush, 8 Lancashire Court, London W1S 1EY until end of September 2021. Offering a season of delicious drinks including the Colada Italiana, Piazza Spritz and Dolce Vita, as well as a sumptuous food menu, it's the place to get a taste of the Med without leaving central London.

For bookings and further details, see hush.co.uk

What we're drinking:

Tom Collins

50ml Old Tom Gin

25ml lemon juice

15ml sugar syrup

Soda water

Lemon slice and cocktail cherry to garnish

Method:

Add first three ingredients to a Collins glass and stir. Fill glass with ice, top with soda water and stir again. Garnish with lemon slice and cocktail cherry.

What we'll be drinking next week…

Piña Colada (sound track optional)

You'll need:

50ml white rum

25ml Coco Reàl Cream of Coconut

25ml fresh pineapple juice

5ml freshly squeezed lime juice

And a blender. Be warned: this one is going to be noisy, but it's worth it!

For more from The Cocktail Lovers, including signing up for our digital and print magazine, visit our website, thecocktaillovers.com

To see the products featured in this episode, check out our Instagram page @thecocktaillovers and see their websites below:

The Clumsies

Empirical Spirits Co

Hawksmoor at Home

Hush

Luxardo

Swift

Trader Vic's Tiki Party

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This episode is packed with all kinds of cocktail-loving goodness – from how to be the perfect host at home to where to go for first-class hosting skills at one of our favourite London hotels.

Our drinks cabinet reveals two products from Discarded Spirits Co – a vodka and a rum, both cleverly made with products that would have otherwise gone to waste and we try a bottled cocktail fit for a world famous spy, courtesy of the suppliers to Her Majesty The Queen.

The wonderfully witty, packed full of handy tips, Esquire's Handbook For Hosts is our literary pick this week and we learn a whole lot of inventive ways to use store cupboard ingredients in our cocktails from JJ Goodman.

What we're mixing:

Paloma (in honour of National Tequila Day)

50ml Patrón Silver Tequila

Two Keys Pink Grapefruit Soda

Pink grapefruit wedge to garnish

Pink Himalayan Salt to rim your glass (optional)

Method:

Dampen the rim of your Collins glass with water, then gently press into a saucer filled with salt to coat the rim.

Fill your glass with ice cubes then pour tequila in the glass and lengthen with Two Keys Pink Grapefruit Soda. With a bar spoon or chopstick, gently mix ingredients together. Garnish with a pink grapefruit wedge. Enjoy!

The Cocktail Lovers theme music is by Travis 'T-Bone' Watson

For more from The Cocktail Lovers, including signing up for our digital and print magazine, visit our website, thecocktaillovers.com

To see the products featured in this episode, check out our Instagram page @thecocktaillovers and see their websites below:

Claridge's Hotel

Discarded Spirits Co

Esquire's Handbook For Hosts

Fortnum & Mason

London Cocktail Club

Kitchen Cocktails

Two Keys Pink Grapefruit Soda

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Just because you're not partaking in full-strength cocktails doesn't mean that you have to miss out on complex, well crafted drinks. In this episode we shine a light on the people and products making no and low abv beverages clever, classy and cool.

We review Æcorn Aromatic, a non-alcoholic aperitif that packs a flavoursome punch, and try Crossip, a new range of alcohol-free spirits created by a fitness fanatic bartender Carl Anthony Brown. From our cocktail library it's the aptly titled, bursting with goodness 'How To Drink Without Drinking – celebratory alcohol-free drinks for any time of day' by Fiona Beckett, while our bar review takes us to Tayer + Elementary where creative cocktails of the no, low and full-strength varieties are always on the menu.

Camille Vidal, founder of La Maison Wellness is in the hotseat this week talking about how to be a healthy hedonist, advising on how reduce, replace and remove alcohol from your glass without losing any of the flavour experience.

What we're mixing: LLB (lemon, lime & bitters)

4-5 dashes Angostura aromatic bitters

20ml lime cordial or 15ml freshly-squeezed lime juice (the cordial will add more sweetness)

Lemonade to lengthen

Lemon wedge to garnish

Method:

Add 4-5 dashes of Angostura bitters to a Collins glass. Gently 'roll' the bitters around to coat as much of the inside of your glass as possible. Fill your glass with ice, then add the lime cordial or freshly-squeezed lime juice and lemonade. Add a few extra dashes of Angostura on top , stir gently with metal straw to combine. Garnish with a lime wedge.

Tip: don't forget to add the lime cordial otherwise it's just LB!

The Cocktail Lovers theme music is by Travis 'T-Bone' Watson

For more from The Cocktail Lovers, including signing up for our digital and print magazine, visit our website, thecocktaillovers.com

To see the products featured in this episode, check out our Instagram page @thecocktaillovers and see their websites below:

Æcorn Aperitifs

Angostura aromatic bitters

Crossip Drinks

How To Drink Without Drinking – celebratory alcohol-free drinks for any time of day

La Maison Wellness

Tayer + Elementary

Camille's suggested non-alcoholic products

Clean Co

Lyres

Three Spirits

Camille's non-alcoholic cocktail recipe:

Bright Side Spritz

Ingredients

50ml Seedlip Grove 42

50ml grapefruit juice

25ml honey water

1 teaspoon rose water

Top with Fentimans Pink Rhubarb Tonic Water

Method

Pour your Seedlip Grove 42, grapefruit juice, honey water and rose water into your shaker and add ice. Give all the ingredients a good shake and strain into a wine glass. Then fill your glass with ice and top with Fentimans pink rhubarb tonic water. Finally garnish with a slice of grapefruit and if you have some rose petals to make it extra fancy!

For more recipes, product recommendations, how-to videos and events, sign up to lamaisonwellness.com

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We've packed all kinds of cocktail-loving goodness into this issue. We start with a review two of fruity (ish) cocktails: one, Apples, a refreshing, super delightful cocktail in cans from the clever team at Coupette in East London; the other, the unmistakable taste of Jaffa Cakes, distilled into a trio of spirits. Bear with us here, we are very much aware that it sounds like a gimmick but we were pleasantly surprised by the taste.

Our books review takes in Beautiful Booze by Natalie Migliarini and James Stevenson and we head over to A Bar With Shapes For A Name to discover how the Bauhaus movement translates into an artfully conceived venue and equally creative drinks.

Jim Meehan speaks to us from Portland, Oregon where we check in with him to talk all things Punch, from the ingredients to the glossary and how and when to serve. Last but no means least, JJ Goodman from the London Cocktail Club shares his invaluable cocktail hack for making kitchen cupboard triple sec (file this one under 'essentials')

What we're mixing:

A Mojito (in celebration of National Mojito Day on 11th July)

Ingredients:

Approx 10 fresh mint leaves

25ml freshly-squeezed lime juice

20ml sugar syrup*

50ml white rum – we use Bacardí Superior

Lime sprig to garnish

Method:

Add fresh mint leaves, freshly-squeezed lime juice and sugar syrup to a Collins glass. Half fill glass with crushed ice and stir to combine ingredients. Top up the glass with more crushed ice. Place the mint sprig in in the palm of your hand and 'clap' together to release the oils, then place in the side of your glass along with a paper or better still, metal straw. (No plastic straws allowed!)

*To make sugar syrup, combine equal parts caster sugar and water in a sterilised bottle. Shake to dissolve. Store in the fridge.

The Cocktail Lovers theme music is by Travis 'T-Bone' Watson

For more from The Cocktail Lovers, including signing up for our digital and print magazine, visit our website, thecocktaillovers.com

To see the products featured in this episode, check out our Instagram page @thecocktaillovers and see their websites below:

A Bar With Shapes For A Name

Apples

Beautiful Booze – Stylish Cocktails To Make At Home

Jaffa Cake Spirits

Mixography Inc

Tabiki, Portland

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We made it our business to be amongst the first in the queue to check out the two bars at the gorgeous new NoMad London, and as we imagined, they didn't disappoint. There's Side Hustle upstairs and Atrium downstairs – if you're cocktail lovers like us, we suggest you make it your business to visit both

Keeping our review hats on we try a new spirit drink called Aloha65, discover Baldoria vermouths and extol the virtues of 'Schofield's Fine and Classic Cocktails – Celebrated Libations and Other Fancy Drinks' by Joe and Daniel Schofield.

Lastly, we talk to Andy Shannon about Candra Drinks, the fab new website he's co-created with spirited consumers in mind. There's recipes, videos, drinks calculators, recipe searches, playlists – in short everything you need to make amazing drinks at home. It's definitely worth having on your radar.

This week's cocktail hack is courtesy of Simone Caporale from Sips Drinkery House, Barcelona.

What we're mixing:

Sandrae's Hot Toddy

Hot water

1/2 freshly squeezed lemon

1-2 tsp honey

50ml rum, brandy, whisky

Method:

The beauty is, there is no method! Combine the lemon and honey in a mug, pour in boiling water and top with your spirit of choice. Stir the lot together and adjust to your specified taste. Job done.

For more from The Cocktail Lovers, including signing up for our digital and print magazine, visit our website, thecocktaillovers.com

To see the products featured in this episode, check out our Instagram page @thecocktaillovers and check out their websites below:

The Cocktail Lovers theme music is by Travis 'T Bone' Watson

Aloha65

Baldoria Vermouth

Candra Drinks

NoMad London

Schofield's Fine and Classic Cocktails

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This week we're thrilled to welcome Simone Caporale to The Cocktail Lovers podcast (cue clapping sound effects and throw in a couple of 'whoops' for good measure!)

As an Italian who has just opened his first independent bar in Barcelona, we couldn't think of a better (or nicer) person to talk to about the art of the aperitivo. In this episode the multi-award-winning bartender gives us a brief insight into the history of aperitifs, tells us how spritzes have gained popularity around the world, gives his insights on how aperitivo differs in Italy and Spain and shares some inspiring tips on how we can all bring some aperitivo elegance into our summer drinking repertoires – whether the sun is shining or not.

From our drinks cabinet we taste Seven Tails XO, a modern brandy created specially for mixing and try out Linden Leaf Cocktail Elements, the clever new atomisers adding a hit of citrus freshness to your glass.

Cas Oh's excellent book, 'Co-Specs' gets the thumbs up as our pick of books to add to your cocktail library and our bar review takes us to Mexico via Marylebone to Maxim Schulte's excellent Mezcalaria at Kol.

There's more too… Listen to the end for details of how to win a fabulous, very special bottle of Royal Salute The Polo Estancia Edition. Entries close 28th July. You're welcome…

What we're mixing:

A Classic Daiquiri

(recipe from the Schofield's Fine and Classic Cocktails)

15ml caster sugar

30ml freshly-squeezed lime juice

60ml white rum (we used Bacardí)

Method:

Place the caster sugar and lime juice in a shaker and stir to dissolve the sugar. Add the rum and shake with ice. Strain into a chilled coupette and serve.

For more from The Cocktail Lovers, including signing up for our digital and print magazine, visit our website, thecocktaillovers.com

To see the products feature in this episode, see our Instagram page @thecocktaillovers and check out their websites below:

The Cocktail Lovers theme music is by Travis 'T Bone Watson

Co-Specs

Linden Leaf Cocktail Elements

Mezcaleria at KOL

Royal Salute

Sips Drinkery House (now open!)

Seven Tails XO Brandy

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Three is the magic number as we review one in a series of three delicious rums from the Caribbean, sample a trio of sexy new shochus from Japan and dive into a brilliant book featuring 100 gin recipes using only three ingredients.

Insider know-how comes courtesy of the three top guns at the award-winning Connaught Bar in London, Ago Perrone, Giorgio Bargiani and Maura Millia sharing their invaluable tips on everything you need to know to make the perfect Dry Martini, including when to shake, how to stir and the all-important ingredient, ice.

And our bar review is without doubt of the poshest pop-up we've ever been to, Solas at the Savoy, is a real corker not only in the looks department but also the food and drink, courtesy of Bowmore Single Malt Islay Whisky

What we're mixing: a three ingredient special (natch) – the Negroni

For more from The Cocktail Lovers, including signing up for our digital and print magazine, visit our website, thecocktaillovers.com

To see the products featured in this episode, see our Instagram page @thecocktaillovers

and check out their websites below:

Connaught Bar

Jung & Wulff Luxury Rums

Sip: 100 Gin Cocktails With Only Three Ingredients

Solas at the Savoy (open until 21 June '21)

The SG Shochu

The Cocktail Lovers theme music is by Travis 'T Bone' Watson

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