Tuesday 16 July 2013

Making cocktails is hard work

This week I have been making one of my favourite syrups - ginger vanilla.
We have been having some pretty unusual HOT weather here in Fife, and ginger vanilla syrup is a real favourite with sparkling water and plenty of ice. We have been sitting out most evenings with a glass of this in hand or pouring the syrup over vanilla ice cream.
I love everything about this syrup - the spicy ginger blends so well with the smoooooth vanilla. I even love the vanilla seeds floating about in it!
As we do though, we got to wondering if the syrup could be used in an alcoholic cocktail. We tried a few ideas out but quickly realised that, like our lavender syrup, ginger vanilla is a 'less is more' kind of thing so we whittled down the ingredients and settled on a ginger gin.

Recipe
2 parts cheap gin
1 part ginger vanilla syrup
1 part lemon juice

combine all the ingredients and then pour over ice.
I liked this in a martini glass with a twist of lemon peel.

We did try expensive gin but found too many flavours going on - so save your best gin and stick to the simplest you have - my kind of cocktail!