Tomorrow evening, fans of whisky, poetry and sheep offal will come together to celebrate the birthday of the great Robert Burns. In the dog days of January there are few pleasures as great as demolishing a plate of haggis while trying to twist your tongue around Burns’s immortal verse. No Burns supper is complete without a few drams to raise in tribute.
However, you need not feel constrained to drink your Scotch only neat or with plain water. These cocktails are intended to show the range and versatility of Scotch whisky. There’s also a gin number thrown in for good measure in case your guests prefer to raise a glass of Scotland’s other national drink.
Bowmore Beachcomber
Tropical flavours might not immediately spring to mind when you think of whisky – especially one from the windswept western Hebrides. But single malts like Bowmore, with its rich fruity notes and subtle smokiness, make an excellent company for pineapple and citrus.
What you need
– 50ml Bowmore 12 Year Old
– 10ml Cointreau
– 2 dashes Angostura bitters
– Pineapple soda
– Limes
How to make it
Cut three lime wedges and squeeze two into a highball glass. Add all the other ingredients, except the soda, and then fill your glass to the brim with nice big ice cubes. Top slowly with the pineapple soda and give a gentle stir to combine. Garnish with your reserved lime wedge and one of those paper umbrellas if you have them to hand.
Bowmore 12 Year old (£35.95, The Whisky Exchange) is packed with aromas of barbecued pineapple, coconut and vanilla. It remains one of the best value single malts out there and works equally well in a tasting glass as in a cocktail. Combine it with sweet Cointreau (£16.50, Waitrose) and spicy Angostura (£10, Amazon) and you’ve got the makings of a serious highball. There are lots of options out there for the pineapple soda, but if you can get hold of Jarritos from Mexico (£2.49, Mexican Mama) it’s the absolute gold standard.
Stromness Flip
One of the oldest families of cocktails, flips are digestif-y drinks made by shaking a spirit or fortified wine with a little sugar and a whole egg. This might be a difficult to get your head around if you’ve never had the pleasure of drinking a flip before – but the whole thing winds up silky, creamy and much lighter than you’d expect. Give it a try, you’ll never look back.
What you need
– 50ml Highland Park 12 Year Old
– 15ml Pedro Ximénez sherry
– 5ml 1:1 sugar syrup
– 1 whole egg
– 2 dashes Angostura bitters
– Nutmeg to garnish
How to make it
Make sure you start with the freshest, best-quality eggs you can get your hands on. Give the shell a little wash before cracking it carefully into your shaker, ensuring that no pieces of shell end up in the tin. Then add your Scotch, sherry, sugar syrup and a couple of dashes of Angostura.
Shake first without ice, making sure to fully emulsify the egg with the other ingredients. Then add ice and shake as hard as you can for as long as you can manage. Double-strain into a chilled cocktail glass (using a tea strainer or similar) and grate a little nutmeg over the top for garnish.
Single malt whisky and sherry is one of those chemically perfect flavour combinations. This is why distillers in Scotland have been maturing their spirit in ex-sherry casks since at least the 18th century. Here we find the sweet, raisin-y Pedro Ximénez sherry picking up the dried fruit, umami and subtle smokiness in the Scotch to create a drink with real depth and complexity.
The iconic Highland Park 12 Year Old (£30.40, Master of Malt) is an excellent all-rounder that punches well above its price point. It definitely deserves a place on your table on Burns Night. Any well-stocked supermarket should carry a PX sherry but Gonzalez Byass Nectar Pedro Ximénez (£15, Amazon) works very nicely here. Be sure to keep the bottle in the fridge after opening, it should retain its charms for a couple of months.
Morning Glory Fizz
Another classic from the archives, the Morning Glory Fizz is basically a Whisky Sour lengthened with soda water and fortified with an eye-opening dash of absinthe. Be careful with this one, it’s moreish.
What you need
– 50ml Coachbuilt Blended Scotch Whisky
– 10ml lemon juice
– 10ml lime Juice
– 15ml 1:1 sugar syrup
– 1 tsp absinthe (about 5ml)
– Egg white (one egg should do two drinks)
– Chilled soda water
How to make it
Last things first: cut yourself a strip of zest from one of those lemons and set it aside. Squeeze your citrus juice, measure it into a shaker and add all the other ingredients except the soda. This one also requires a two-step shake: first without ice to whip up the egg whites, and then a second time with ice to get it nice and frosty. After shaking, strain into a small wine glass or flute and slowly top with the soda water. Squeeze your lemon zest over the top for garnish and serve immediately.
A good-quality blended Scotch is what you want here. Coachbuilt (£42, direct), a relative newcomer to the scene, is the brainchild of Formula 1 champion Jenson Button and whisky industry type George Koutsakis. It’s a richly textured dram full of dried fruits, toffee and toasted almonds that works brilliantly with the sweet anise notes from the absinthe. There are a lot of new blends vying for market share at the moment but this one crucially has a bit of character – well worth getting a bottle in for the bar cart.
Speaking of stocking up the home bar, a wee bottle of the green fairy is a must-have. New wave producer Jade makes handy 20cl bottles, such as the elegantly perfumed Nouvelle Orleans Absinthe Verte (£27.25, The Whisky Exchange) which fit the bill perfectly. As well as being an indispensable ingredient for the Morning Glory there’s lots of fun to be had adding a dash or two to your Manhattan or your Margarita.
Freezer Martini (Scottish style)
While Burns Night is traditionally a celebration of the guid auld Scotch drink, the great distillers of Scotland are adept at making far more than just whisky. This pre-batched Martini is made with Botanist dry gin (£32.99, Master of Malt) from Bruichladdich distillery on the Hebridean island of Islay. In case you’re wondering, it’s pronounced brook-laddie… seriously.
What you need
– 1 bottle Botanist Islay dry gin
– 60ml Noilly Prat dry vermouth
– 60ml La Gitana manzanilla sherry
– 80ml filtered water
– 1 pinch sea salt
How to make it
Measure out 200ml of gin and make a round of G&Ts or reserve in a spare container for later. Pour your Noilly Prat (£12.25, Waitrose), manzanilla and filtered water into the bottle, followed by a small pinch of sea salt. Give the whole thing a shake and then put it in the freezer along with a few cocktail glasses. You can do this on the morning of your Burns supper or, even better, the night before.
When aperitif time rolls around plate up a selection of garnishes – lemon twists, olives, some little pickles, whatever you fancy – and pour the ready-made Martini straight into the frozen glasses. The nice part about batched cocktails like this is that they leave you free to focus on hosting and getting the haggis ready.
The Botanist is made with foraged botanicals and brings a coastal freshness to this serve that’s further amplified by the bone-dry La Gitana manzanilla (£12.75, Waitrose) and the sprinkle of salt. A glacially cold Martini like this doesn’t really need any accompaniments but a few oysters or some Scottish langoustines would be absolutely brilliant here. Slàinte mhath!
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