GarethLangston

I searched for "passionfruit liqueur" rather than "passion fruit liqueur" here looking for inspiration to use my home made liqueur and only found one post, which was The Scirroco, and used the flavours as the basis for my own original cocktail. It turned out fantastic, and amazingly carried the passion fruit flavour better than I could have hoped.

I've been making syrups, liqueurs etc at home for a while now - and recently started documenting this on instagram (I'd appreciate a follow over there if you are interested in what sort of seasonal produce I come by in England). The thing that frustrates me about it the most is filtering the finished products. There are a few things that I've made which I didn't filter as well as I should, and they were not too bad. A raspberry liqueur which aged beautifully, coffee liqueur which still tastes great, but there have also been things that have got a muddy flavour and lots of sediment settling so now I always pass things through a nut milk bag and a coffee filter. The coffee filter is what frustrates me, it's so slow and it tends to get gummed up and need replacing. Is there a better way?

I haven't really bought anything for a while, but with bars being closed I figured I've probably saved enough to make it worthwhile. The Mezcal is just for mixing, seems quite similar to Vida. The Raicilla I've tried in Hacha, London, where they pair it with either an IPA or a small amount of the spirit with CBD oil floated on top, both are fantastic. I had to get myself a bottle. I'm hoping the foamer will be worth the outlay, it's not cheap at £25 but for occasional sours this should be more convenient and cost effective than eggs or aqua faba.

I've just made this, it was nice, predictably quite manhattan-ish but I liked the sweet notes. I might try it again with my peanut infused bourbon in place of the rye.

I put together a sour with poitin, coconut syrup, lime and aqua farbe with mole bitters on top. I was really pleased with how well the poitin and coconut played together. They were gone too quickly for a photo but my friends have dubbed this the poitina collada so no doubt I will be expected to mix up another batch at some point.

Just a little martini. This is made with Wild Beer Co's sleeping lemon gin, one of a batch of I believe only 20 bottles, distilled by Bristol's psychopomp distillery. The botanicals include preserved lemons as well as lemon grass & lemon balm. It's a really lovely, salty citrus forward gin which makes an interesting martini. Garnished with home made preserved lemons. It was, as you might expect, very lemony.

I was experimenting earlier this evening, a whiskey sour with biscoff syrup. The biscoff gives a really silky mouthfeel but the bourbon overwhelmed the biscuit flavour. That was our third drink, after two clover club variations with Swedish preserves, so I didn't get chance to try with a less assertive whiskey.

The rum was Clement Blanc, with the green label. The syrup was just 1:1 with flat champagne and cane sugar if I remember correctly.

I had a fantastic agricole daquiri at Kester Thomas in Copenhagen this weekend, using a house made champagne syrup.

Not so much bought as received. The Los Dantantes is absolutely delicious, in fact they all are.

I listen to bartender journey and I often find it disappointing, in that were really often getting a sales pitch from a rep of some kind. I much prefer the cocktail lessons, amor y amargo talking about how they run their bar was a particular highlight recently. I also listen to "let's drink about it" which is less informative and is more a fun conversation with some drinks, which are paired to life events explained by the guests. There is a gap in the market for a podcast that explores cocktails more thoroughly with bar reviews and maybe experimentation with what ingredients and methods bring to classic drinks. I've been toying with the idea of launching my own, with a focus on London bars as well as drinking at home but I'm not sure how much of an audience there would be for that.

A few bits and pieces

I was fortunate enough to pick up a few bergamot from Waitrose at about 15p each, which I've processed into bergamot simple syrup, which tastes amazing and also a batch of bergamocello. The Bergamocello has been a disaster, I was about to go on holiday and didn't have enough vodka in the house so I used a little gin to make up the liquid, thinking this would add a nice edge to the flavour and I was completely wrong. I stupidly picked up Hendricks as the gin, as I had an unopened bottle I was gifted ready to replace the bottle on the shelf. It's not a gin I drink regularly and it's added a terribly soapy flavour that has completely ruined the liqueur.. any suggestions on how to rescue this would be welcome!

I went to Dry Martini, a bar which has served over a million of its namesake cocktails. It saddened me greatly to see that they were made with bombay sapphire and the lightest dash of oxidised vermouth. I like to use Martin Millers, I've also enjoyed cremorne colonel Fox. Of course I take my martinis with a cocktail onion, so ymmv.

I had a lovely cocktsil last night in a bar called El Duderino in Jönköping, Sweden. It was called La Verde and was comprised of mescal, lime, agave and chartreuse ( yellow VEP), chartreuse elixir and egg white with a line of Bunnahabhain Toiteach floated on top. It didn't last long enough to take a picture. It was Incredibly herbal and smokey. I can't wait to try it at home.