Cocktail of the Week – Hot Toddy

This week, I’ve had a cold.

I *hate* having colds. Hate it, hate it, hate it.

However, I realise that it’s inevitable that I’ll catch the occasional cold, living in the North of Scotland and all. Also, it’s not a bad cold (I’ve been in work every day) and it’s given me the chance to try out a different kind of cocktail – the hot toddy.

This is a traditional Scottish cocktail (unsurprising, considering our weather) and, according to the poet Allan Ramsay, it was named after Tod’s Well in Edinburgh.

It’s different from all of the other cocktails I’ve made because it’s hot – there are many variants, but they should all include hot water, citrus fruit, a sweetener and some spices. This version is very traditional.

Hot Toddy

2 msr Scotch whisky

1/2 msr lemon juice

1 tsp brown sugar

3 drops Angostura Bitters

1 lemon slice, studded with cloves

Place the ingredients in a heatproof glass or mug, stir to dissolve the sugar and top up with boiling water.

The cloves and lemon make this. It’s citrus and warming at the same time. I’m not sure if it helped get rid of my cold, but it felt like it should have.

Cocktail of the Week – The Aviation

As is probably evident from the picture at the top of this blog, I like planes.

I’ve never lost the childish sense of wonder of being at 36,000 feet. It’s something that people patently shouldn’t be able to do – but rather that being a source of concern or fear – I find it’s something to be amazed by.

I know flying’s now commonplace and that parts of the experience are positively soul-destroying (I’m convinced that Hell is an airport departure lounge). But it doesn’t remove the thrill I feel when the wheels leave the tarmac.

In the early twentieth century, the sense of wonder was more common –  aviation was the wonder of the age, celebrated in every medium.

Including cocktails.

The Aviation was originally made with crème de violette, which turned the drink sky blue. However, crème de violette is rather difficult to find, which means that many recipes omit it – including the one I used.

The Aviation

2 msrs dry gin

1 msr lemon juice

2 dashes Maraschino

Share ingredients with ice, strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with a cherry.

This is another gin sour, like the White Lady (but with Maraschino instead of Cointreau).

And like the White Lady, it’s very sour – you do taste the cherry from the Maraschino, but it’s only slight – the main flavour is lemon.

It’s certainly a drink I’d like to try again though – particularly with crème de violette.

Cocktail of the Week – Income Tax

As most of you know, I’m a tax adviser in my working life. (Not a taxi driver, as one phone survey person thought…)

6 April marks the beginning of a new tax year here in the UK – income tax returns are calculated from 6 April one year to 5 April the next.

The reason for the strange tax year is down to the customs of 250 years ago. Up until 1752, New Year’s Day in Britain was on Lady Day – 25 March. This mean that 24 March 1662 would be followed the next day by 25 March 1663.

In 1752, Britain adopted the Gregorian calendar, which was designed to correct errors that had crept in to the old Julian Calendar, and is the calendar we still use today.

The Julian calendar, like a slightly broken clock, was running slow, due to there not being enough leap years. Eventually Christmas would have been in summer. (At least in the Northern Hemisphere.)

The solution was that Wednesday 2 September 1752 was followed by Thursday 14 September 1752.

(Russia didn’t adopt the Gregorian calendar until the twentieth century, which is why the October Revolution was in November…)

Although the calendar had changed, the tax authorities didn’t want to change the tax year, so the tax year moved  from 25 March to 6 April.

And that’s why the British tax year starts on 6 April.

Which is a very long-winded way of introducing this week’s cocktail – the Income Tax.

Income Tax

1 msr dry gin

1/2 msr sweet vermouth

1/2 msr dry vermouth

Juice of half an orange (about 50ml)

2 dashes of Angostura Bitters

Add ingredients to a shaker with ice, shake, strain and pour into a cocktail glass.

The origins of the name “income tax” for this cocktail are obscure, but it tastes very nice – tangy, but with lots of depth of flavour from the vermouths and a bitterness from the Angostura (be careful not to overdo them though).

Cocktail of the Week – The Imperial

A man in my local spirits shop told me the other day that the amount of vermouth in martinis has decreased over the years to such an extent that some people now just wave the bottle in the vague direction of the cocktail glass.

After all, as I’ve mentioned many times before, tastes change with time – including cocktails. Recently invented cocktails seem to use fruit juices more as ingredients than their predecessors (possibly as much due to improved refrigeration than taste).

Conversely, the old cocktail recipes, such as the 1930′s Savoy Cocktail Book, feature ingredients no one really considers any more, such as absinthe and maraschino.

Maraschino is funny stuff – it’s an Italian bittersweet cherry licqueur, that’s not nearly as sweet (or as red) as cherry brandy and is faintly oily.

It also comes in a wonderfully kitsch straw covered bottle.

Having bought the bottle, all I needed was a 1930′s cocktail that included it. A quick scan through the Savoy Cocktail Book produced the Imperial.

(My selection  has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Star Wars: The Old Republic is taking up a lot of my time at the moment. No association at all. Honest.)

Imperial

1/2 msr gin

1/2 msr dry vermouth

Dash Angostura Bitters

Dash Maraschino

Mix ingredients with ice and strain into a cocktail glass and serve with an olive.

(Be careful measuring out the maraschino – I ended up with a bit more than a dash…)

This is quite complex – it’s refreshing and quite bitter, but not overwhelmingly so – it’s probably something that needs to be tried a couple of times to be perfected.

Three Things February – 29th February

Last day!

1) Attempting yoga for the first time in goodness knows how long…

2) Elinor retrieving her Neuschwanstein model from her dad’s house;

3) Very tasty pies…

Three Things February – 28th February

1) Gloating over the weather forecast that said Aberdeen was going to be 17 degrees centigrade today…

2) Browsing through a bookshop at lunchtime;

3) A lovely sunset

Three Things February – 27th February

1) Awesome cupcakes at work, covered in marshmallows and edible glitter;

2) Discussing what the Antiques Roadshow would be like if the experts had no idea what anything was;

3) This leading to a discussion with Elinor of how different English counties had different billhook designs. (Particularly pleased that we both knew what we were actually talking about…)