For this month’s cocktail club, we’re following up dry January with a selection of low ABV and light, refreshing cocktails. Get ready to shake things up with our Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day themed drinks. Cheers!
Christian Zamora
PlumpJack Wine & Spirits
Seedlip
When you think of the word distilled, the first thought that comes to mind is alcohol & spirits. Seedlip is the first non-alcoholic distilled spirit. Based out of the UK, using freshly picked botanicals and spices, they have created a non-alcoholic, zero calorie, sugar & sweetener free product with no artificial flavors using water, natural botanical distillates & extracts. Unlike anything else, Seedlip’s products are great to have by themselves with soda water or tonic, to create mocktails, and of course, to mix in alcoholic cocktails as well! They are perfect for adding a unique flavor element to drinks without adding the alcohol, making them fun to play with in drinks.
Spice 94
Spice 94 contains an array of spices such as cardamom, allspice berry, oak bark and cascarilla along with a variety of citrus. The warm spicy notes show themselves first, followed by bright lemon & grapefruit highlights, finishing with a long and bitter end. The fusion of ingredients make for a delightfully bitter and interesting spirit that can be used to create an amazing mocktail gin and tonic that even some gin drinkers wouldn’t know was booze-less.
Garden 108
Garden 108 is pure botanical goodness, the aroma of peas and thyme come first, followed by a little bit of hops and rosemary to round it out. The botanicals for Garden 108 are hand picked to ensure the freshest quality. This really translates in the spirit once it’s distilled. If you pay attention to the label, the highlighted ingredients are composed to make the image. Compared to Spice 94, it’s sweeter and much softer on the palate.
Cocktails:
Cloud of Love
1 oz St. Germain
1 Egg White
1.5 oz Seedlip Spice 94
Splash of Q Ginger Beer
Crack egg white in Shaker and add 1 oz of St. Germain. Use the spring from your Hawthorne strainer orbit (or use a spring from a protein shake shaker) and throw inside the tin with egg white. Shake vigorously until egg whites have become whipped.
Pour Seedlip Spice 94 in a ice filled collins glass, add a splash of Q ginger beer and top with foam. Garnish with edible flower.
The anise and clove spice from seedlip with the ginger spice from Q blend well together. The sugar from St. Germain and ginger beer make it super refreshing for a low ABV cocktail.
Sweet-Heart-Tart
1 1/2 oz Tanqueray Gin
¾ oz Lemon Juice
3/4 oz Simple Syrup (1:1)
½ oz Seedlip Spice 94
1 Strawberry
Muddle strawberry and add ingredients into shaker. Add ice, shake, fine strain into a chilled coupe glass. Garnish with strawberry.
Very light and bright drink. The Seedlip 94 gives the drink a nice finish which balances the tart and sweetness from the fruit. Careful not to fall in love with this drink too much ;)
Chartreuse Smash
1 oz Chartreuse
¾ oz Lime Juice
¾ oz Simple Syrup (1:1)
¾ oz Seedlip Garden 108
2 Lime Wedges
8-10 Sprigs of Mint
Top with Soda Water
Muddle lime wedges and mint then add ingredients into shaker except soda water. Add ice and shake vigorously, dirty dump into Collins glass. Top with soda water and garnish with lime wedge and mint.
A play between a mojito and swizzle, sweet, tart, refreshing, spicy. The combination of ingredients really make this cocktail fun.
Garden Margarita
1 ½ oz Luna Azul Tequila
½ oz Dill Simple Syrup (2:1)
¾ oz Lime Juice
½ oz Seedlip Garden 108
Add all ingredients into shaker, add ice, shake, fine strain into ice filled rocks glass. Garnish with dill. (Salt rim optional)
Dill Simple Syrup
This time we are making a rich simple syrup, what makes it rich? Rich simple syrup is in the ratio of sugar to water (2:1) rather than (1:1). Typically when using rich simple syrup you use less in a cocktail to allow more ingredients to be used.
5-6 sprigs of Dill
1 cup of sugar
½ cup of water
Gently muddle the dill to express the aromas, add sugar and water to the pot. Let it simmer in a low heat and stir until sugar has dissolved. After the syrup begins to bubble turn off flame and let it cool. Fine strain syrup into container. The syrup should be a nice light green color and should smell like dill.
