What better way to mark the action in Beijing than a thematically appropriate Winter Olympic cocktail. These recipes feature alpine liqueurs and cold-weather flavours to keep you fortified throughout the event.
Norwegian Wood
With Norway set to top the medal table once again, it seems fitting that our Winter Olympic cocktail party feature a bottle of aquavit. This traditional Scandinavian spirit is distilled with caraway and other botanicals, which makes it a close relative of gin without the juniper. It’s tasty on its own but even better in a Martini.
Ingredients:
60ml Nuet Aquavit
15ml Regal Rogue Daring Dry
15ml Manzanilla Sherry
Little Pickles
Method:
You can stir the ingredients over ice in the traditional fashion, but it seems fitting in this case to get everything as glacially cold as possible. Borrowing a bit of technique from the legendary Dukes Bar Martini, start your prep the day before by putting the aquavit and cocktail glasses in the freezer and the Sherry and vermouth in the fridge. Just as you’re sitting down to watch the curling, pour all the ingredients into a frozen cocktail glass, give it a quick stir to combine, and garnish with a cornichon. The vermouth and aquavit are fresh and herbal, complimenting the umami and light salinity from the Sherry and the pickle. A great match for smoked salmon or gravlax.
Nuet Aquavit (£39.95 – Spririt.ed) is perfect here: In addition to the traditional herbs and spices, it carries a little extra zip courtesy of grapefruit peel and blackcurrant. It’s a brilliant introduction to the category that definitely deserves a place on the home bar. You can use it basically anywhere you’d use gin or vodka. Regal Rogue Daring Dry vermouth (£19.50 – Master of Malt) is citrussy and slightly bitter, with a complex backbone of native Australian botanicals. Any dry Manzanilla will fit the bill but Bodegas Hidalgo La Gitana (Sainsbury’s – £8) is easy to come by and incredible value for money.
With any fortified wine or vermouth remember to keep the bottle in the fridge once it’s opened and try to get through it in a couple of weeks if you can.
Rattlesnake
This variation on the classic whisky sour comes with a spicy, vegetal kick from added rye whisky and absinth. It’s a one-two-punch of flavour that’ll be familiar to fans of the Sazerac. Any Kentucky Straight rye will work here but the herbal profile of Canadian rye whisky has an alpine feel to it that fits our Winter Olympic theme perfectly.
Ingredients:
50ml Lot 40 Rye Whisky
25ml Lemon Juice
15ml 1:1 Simple Syrup
½ Tsp Absinthe
1 Egg white
Orange zest and mint
Method:
Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker and shake ‘dry’ – that’s without ice – to whip up the egg white. Then shake a second time and strain into a tumbler filled with ice. Cut a twist of orange peel and squeeze it over the top of the drink to give it a spritz of oil. Garnish with a sprig of mint and serve immediately.
Canadian whisky has had a pretty variable reputation in the past, but there are plenty of bottlings out there today making a case for the category. Lot 40 (£35.95 – The Whisky Exchange) is made from 100% rye, distilled in copper pot stills, and aged in new American oak. It’s a big, chewy dram with a green and minty profile that’s perfect in this sort of serve. A small bottle of absinthe is a good thing to have about the place as half a teaspoon in any classic cocktail is a sure-fire way to add a extra layer of complexity. Jade Espirit Edouard Absinthe Verte (£27.25 – TWE) comes in a handy 20cl size that’s idea for the cocktail cabinet.
Nuclear Daiquiri
Beijing 2022 marks the first time a Jamaican four-man bobsleigh team has made it to the Winter Olympics since 1998. If they don’t win anything you can always put Cool Runnings on and sink a couple of these in consolation. It’s a daiquiri riff that pits the intense pineapple, brine and liquorice flavours in Jamaica’s favourite rum against the almost psychedelicly complex Chartreuse liqueur. Be careful with this one, it exists at a dangerous point on the delicious vs potent scale.
Ingredients:
25ml Wray & Nephew Overproof Rum
25ml Lime Juice
15ml Green Chartreuse
15ml Velvet Falernum
Method:
Chill down some cocktail glasses in the freezer, combine all ingredients in a shaker with plenty of ice and shake as hard as you can. Strain through a fine strainer into your cocktail glass and serve un-garnished.
Wray & Nephew (£26.50 – Ocado) is a criminally underrated spirit, full of tropical fruit and Jamaican rum funk. At 63% it needs to be treated with respect but it’s an incredible cocktail ingredient. Bright-green Chartreuse (£38.45 – Master of Malt) drunk neat or slugged into hot chocolate, is beloved of apres-skiers on slopes around Europe. It’s still made in Grenoble by the same order of Carthusian monks who’ve kept its recipe secret for centuries. You’ll often hear its unique flavour likened to absinthe or other herbal liqueurs but in all honesty, it isn’t really like anything else. It just tastes like Chartreuse – you have to try it to understand. Velvet Falernum (£22.95 – Amazon) is a rum liqueur originating in Barbados that adds a welcome undertone of nuts and spices to the Nuclear Daiquiri. Barbados doesn’t have a team in the Winter Olympics this year but they’re invited to the party anyway.
Silver Bullet
A stone-cold classic from the legendary Harry Craddock’s 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book. The original recipe sees gin propped up with a splash of kummel, a wintery liqueur that just tastes like being on a mountain. In this variation we’re subbing the London Dry for a nice bright vodka from the un-nameable country that brought us the Russian Olympic Committee. The result is a bracing little number that’s ideal for sharpening up your appetite before dinner.
Ingredients:
50ml Beluga Noble Russian Vodka
20ml Mentzendorff Kummel
15ml Lemon Juice
10ml 1:1 Simple Syrup
Grapefruit peel
Method:
Shake all the ingredients with plenty of ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with twist of grapefruit peel.
Vodka is never going to announce itself in a cocktail with really big flavours. It’s neutral tasting by definition, but what it can contribute is a nice sense of the texture. Beluga (£36.95 – Waitrose) is an ideal choice here as it’s soft and slightly creamy on the palate. Spicy Mentzendorff Kummel (£20.99 – Amazon) will be familiar to golfers, some of whom favour a tot of the so-called ‘putting juice’ to steady their nerves and help their short game. The unique combination of anise, cumin and orange is an acquired taste but once you’ve done the acquiring it quickly becomes addictive.
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