Sign up to our free newsletter here for more travel inspiration. You also get your own copy of our travel ebook — it’s on us!

You might have noticed this interesting little gin subset, but wine-infused gin is a fairly new concept and one that Australia has made its speciality.

Combining the refreshing herbal and citrus flavours of gin with the rounded softness and spice we enjoy from red wine, these wine-infused gins are the perfect solution — in more ways than one.

Different types of wine-infused gin

Shiraz is the most popular option for wine-infused gin, though there is a multitude of other examples out there — even white wine, fortifieds and other fruit like sloe berries.

But red wine adds a beautiful dark red colour to the gin as well as plenty of berry, spice and gentle oak flavours.

Here are some of our favourite examples:

Tread Softly Pinot Noir Gin

Rich with the aromas and flavours we associate with Pinot Noir — cherries, strawberries and a little spice — this beautiful bright red gin has plenty of fresh juniper, summer flowers and grassy notes that blend with the Pinot notes.

Tread Softly is focused on sustainability. Bottles are made from 100% recycled glass and the brand has a tree-planting programme that is so far up to almost 1.5million Australian natives.

Buy Tread Softly Pinot Noir Gin here.

Otter Craft Distillery Mary Street Shiraz Gin

This deep purple gin speaks of the robust power of the Shiraz wine used here. And although the Shiraz makes itself at home in this spirit, packing plenty of rich dark fruit and chocolate notes, this gin still holds up its end of the bargain by exhibiting its own flavour profile.

Hand-made in Lilyfield, NSW by Eduard Otter and served with aplomb at Bar 26, the distillery’s speakeasy next door.

Buy OCD Mary St Shiraz Gin here.

Naught Distilling Sangiovese Gin

Less common other varietals, Sangiovese as a gin infusion is actually a great option. Harnessing the bright, stone fruit, citrus and herbs of the wine, Naught Distillery’s Sangiovese Gin creates quite an earthy, savoury base bolstered by a bold, fruit-forward mid-palate.

Distiller (and ex-basketballer) Chris Cameron recommends using this beauty in an adapted French 75.

Buy your Naught Sangiovese Gin here.

Tempus Two Copper Shiraz Gin

Better known as a Hunter Valley winery, Tempus Two’s Shiraz Gin from their Copper Series of beverages takes a slightly different tangent on wine-infused gin than most. Using their own Shiraz wine to create a base spirit, the distillers double down on the varietal, adding in extra Shiraz as a botanical.

The result is a herbaceous, rich gin with a dark, plummy Christmas cake profile. This drinks well in cocktails, but also as it is over ice.

Buy your Tempus Two Copper Shiraz Gin here.

How to drink wine-infused gin

Although they’re not quite as versatile as regular gin, the added richness and flavour from wine-infused gins means they can lift a few regular cocktails to new heights.

On the Rocks

Unless you’re a hardened gin soak, you’re not drinking straight gin like it’s whisky. But with its added flavours from the wine, this style works well just with a big ice cube and a twist of lemon.

Enriched Negroni

If you want to fancy-up your regular negroni, using wine-infused gin creates another layer of depth to the drink. Play with the qualities a little until you’re happy — just like regular gins, win-infused gin will give you different flavours that you can balance (or unbalance) with your mix.

We also love using other types of gin to negronis like barrel-aged gin or sloe gin.

Gin Highball

Highballs are becoming more and more popular, but what is a highball? Simply, it’s just your spirit of choice in a tall glass and ice topped up with soda. Ordinarily, this would water gin down, but the added wine flavours make this a refreshing yet very simple cocktail.

If you want a bit more flavour, try your wine-infused gin with a splash of tonic as well.

The post Sip Happens — The Wine-Infused Gin Trend You Need to Try appeared first on Mr and Mrs Romance.

Sign up to our free newsletter here for more travel inspiration. You also get your own copy of our travel ebook – it’s on us!

The negroni is a cocktail that has grown huge in popularity in recent years and for very good reason. The balance of bitter, sweet, herbaceous and boozy is truly intoxicating. Plus it’s one of the easiest cocktails to make.

But behind its simplicity, the negroni is also a wonderfully adaptable canvas that you can add to, take away from and change ingredients with some startlingly tasty results.

For more cocktail recipes and tips on how to set up for a baller of a cocktail party, check out our cocktail guide ebook here!

1. Amplify Your Gin

Gin is a complicated spirit. Depending on what the distiller has made it with, your gin might be sweet, spicy, salty or herbaceous. It might be a powerful gin or something that is gentler and floral.

All too often, we follow the ‘equal parts’ rule of a negroni too hard and fast, and the gin drowns in the other flavours.

Adding 1.5 or even double the amount of gin to your negroni allows the gin to sing louder and bring some of its subtler flavours to the fore.

Banks & Solander’s Ora Gin has delicate Japanese flavours of kombu, sake, ginger and miso that really shine in a gin X2 negroni.

2. Cut The Campari

Campari is an incredible drink, but at the end of the day it’s still an amaro—a bitter aperitivo with a strong orange flavoured backbone. There are lots of amaros out there worth playing with that can add different things to your negroni.

Aperol is lighter and sweeter than Campari, and an easy option. However, the lesser-known but equally good Select is somewhere between the two.

Amaro Montenegro instead of Campari (a ‘Montenegroni’ to some) makes a slightly sweeter and more citrusy drink. Swapping out Campari for Cynar (it’s called a Cin-Cyn by the way) is gentler on the palate than Campari.

Australian craft distillers have also thrown their hats in the ring with the likes of Rhubi Mistelle made from rhubarb and Ester Distillery’s Alternativo Aperitivo. Rhubi is an intensely bright aperitivo that’s sweeter than it is bitter, and Ester’s efforts are simply on point for a superb classic Aussie negroni.

3. Look Beyond London Dry

There are so many styles of gin around that make such a difference to a negroni. Try coffee-laced gins, barrel-aged gins or berry-flavoured gins like sloe gin to bend the flavours of your negroni.

This is the easiest change you can make to a negroni in your search for your favourite recipe.

4. Swap Out The Gin

Don’t get stuck in the gin rut with negronis. There are lots of other options. Using whisky instead of gin (known as a boulevardier) is excellent, though you’ll need to adjust the other ingredients a little depending on the whisky.

For something a little different, give rum a try. Its natural sweetness and spiciness are perfect matches for the bittersweet of the other ingredients.

For something a lot different, try mezcal as a gin replacement. This smoky unctuous spirit turns the average negroni into a deep, resinous, sophisticated drink perfect for sipping.

5. Turn It White

For most of us, a negroni’s trademark is its deep red colour. But what if you change all of that?

Swap out the red (sweet) vermouth for Lillet Blanc (you can also try mixing together dry vermouth and white vermouth) and instead of the bright red of Campari, use a bitter gentian liqueur like Suze, Salers or Aveze.

You’re left with a clear, slightly amber cocktail, but still undeniably one with all the hallmarks of one of the world’s great drinks.

Bonus: Smoke It Up

Adding smoke to a negroni not only amps up the flavours, it also adds a fun bit of food theatre to things.

I love my Smoking Cocktail kit. You put the smoker over your glass, add wood chips and light them. The smoke fills the glass and infuses with your negroni, and when you lift the smoker off the glass, smoke drifts out. Very dramatic!

The post How To Upgrade Your Negroni appeared first on Mr and Mrs Romance.

First of all, it’s important to remember that the G&T has come a long way since its creation. It hasn’t always been so tasty.

Gin in the 1600-1800s was to officers in the British navy what rum was to the rest of the crew, but they used to just drink it neat—maybe with a little water.

It would have also been ‘navy strength’, which means its ABV would be over 57.5%.

You can read more about navy strength spirits and why they’re so strong in our story here. But essentially, it was that strong because any lower and it wouldn’t ignite.

Some think it was this strong in case the gin got mixed with the gunpowder on the ship. Others say it was the way to tell if the spirit had been watered down.

Check out our review of one of our all-time favourite navy strength gins.

The tonic element came along when sailors discovered that quinine helps prevent malaria while they were in the tropics. The only downside was on its own, quinine doesn’t taste very nice, but then neither did the incredibly strong gin of the day.

Putting the two together though made everything more palatable.

How to make the perfect gin and tonic

Unlike the easy fix of mixing gin with quinine to avoid malaria and improve bad gin, there’s no simple answer to the perfect G&T.

Understanding the gin you’re drinking, the best type of tonic to put with it and what garnish to use all goes towards making the best cocktail.

Here are 3 perfect examples:

1. Warners Rhubarb Gin and Tonic

Hailing from the heart of the British countryside, family-owned Warner’s Distillery makes superb spirits using fresh ingredients that Tom and Tina Warner grow on their farm.

This includes the fresh rhubarb and rhubarb juice they use in their ground-breaking spirit—the one that started the craze of pink gins around the world—Warner’s Rhubarb Gin.

Warner’s Rhubarb Gin is quite bold, and its sharp citrus nature balances well with a sweeter Mediterranean style of tonic. For a garnish, to match the citrus flavours and rosy colour, a slice of blood orange is the idea garnish here.

– 60ml Warner’s Rhubarb Gin
– Splash of Mediterranean tonic
– Garnish with a slice of blood orange

You can find Warner’s Rhubarb Gin at Dan Murphy’s here. RRP $79.99

2. Wild Hibiscus Co Fingerlime Gin and Tonic

This fascinating craft Aussie gin distillery is one of many that harness the delicious flavours of native Australian finger limes, but it’s the only one that grows and harvests its own fruit.

But that’s not the most amazing thing about the Wild Hibiscus Co’s Finger Lime Gin.

Ordinarily, the little citrusy balls of fruit inside each finger lime (often called ‘caviar’) sink in liquids. But Lee Etherington—founder of this distillery—has somehow managed to suspend the caviar so you’re guaranteed to get a few in every drink rather than having to wait until the end of the bottle!

What’s more, the caviar have been infused with an entirely different gin, so you’re really getting two for the price of one!

This citrus-forward gin is powerful enough to stand up to a classic Indian tonic and the finger lime caviar throughout your drink is often garnish enough, thought Lee likes a couple of sprigs of lemon thyme with his G&T.

– 60ml Wild Hibiscus Finger Lime Gin
– Splash of premium tonic
– Garnish with sprigs of lemon thyme

You can buy Wild Hibiscus Co’s Finger Lime Gin direct from the wholesaler here. RRP $150.00

3. Wild Ren Gin and Tonic

This light bright gin from the Hunter Valley is a lovely punctuation amongst the wines that this little vineyard makes.

Wild Ren Gin is quite a light spirit though. There’s plenty of flavour—of lemon myrtle, anise and pepper—but they’re quite delicate. This means stronger flavoured and fuller bodied tonics will probably overpower the gin.

But just because a gin is on the lighter side doesn’t mean you can’t easily make a G&T with it. Our favourite trick is to add half tonic and half soda water. You still get the gin interaction with the tonic but you don’t miss out on the botanicals.

– 60ml Wild Ren Gin
– Half and half light tonic and soda water
– Garnish with a thin slice of lemon peel

You can buy Wild Ren Gin direct from the distiller here. $87.00 RRP

The post How to make the perfect gin and tonic appeared first on Mr and Mrs Romance.

Hot toddy with Aberfeldy 12yo scotch

You might think of hot toddies as only being remedies for colds, but for whisky lovers, they’re actually one of the best warming cocktails on a cold night.

The mix of sweetness from honey, zing and bitterness from spices, and that familiar punch from a good scotch means the trifecta of flavour profiles you need in a cocktail are fulfilled.

– 15-30ml Aberfeldy 12yo scotch
– 1tsp of hot toddy mix from Gewurzhaus
– Honey to taste (usually less than a teaspoon.
– Boiled water

1. Steep the toddy mix in a tea pig in the hot water for 4 minutes.

2. Dissolve the honey in the hot water then add the whisky. Stir well and snuggle up.

If you want to make a toddy mix yourself, slices of fresh ginger, a couple of cloves, cardamon pods and star anise, black pepper corns, grated nutmeg and some lemon juice will get you some of the way.

But this hot toddy mix from Gewurzhaus in Sydney is incredible.

Aberfeldy 12 Years Old is a Highland scotch with honey on the nose and on the lips. It’s a rich, gentle whisky that has benefited from a longer than normal fermentation period.

The distinctive honey notes coupled with a fine oakiness, and a sharpness and structure from the 40%ABV alcohol make this an easy drinker on its own.

But the honey of this whisky really marries well in something like a toddy. It also works beautifully in an old fashioned or in a sour.

Buy your bottle of Aberfeldy 12 Year Old from bottleshops nationally.

Hot buttered rum with Dead Man’s Gold

It might seem a bit weird putting butter in a drink, but it actually works. Butter adds a wonderful richness and warmth to the drink, and the extra spices and flavours you add elevate that.

But using a high-quality spiced rum like Dead Man’s Gold from Stone Pine Distillery in Bathurst, NSW amps everything up several notches.

Here’s the full recipe, but essentially you need butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, allspice, vanilla and of course this rum. You make the butter and spices into a kind of batter, add it to hot water then spike with the rum.

Hot buttered rum has been around since before the American War of Independence and is still a popular winter drink the States. It’s likely this recipe came from the New England colony, where rum and sugar cane molasses from the West Indies was easy to come by.

Rum at that time was the drink of choice for much of the planet – especially within the vast British Empire, so there are lots cocktails from that time that are still popular today.

Buy your bottle of Dead Man’s Gold spiced rum from the distillery’s exclusive distributor here.

Mulled wine with Aussie Shiraz

A glass of red is always a welcome sight when the evenings turn chilly, but mulled wine takes the next step. This warm infusion of spices and flavours into the wine really create the perfect winter antidote.

Mulled wine has many names and even more variations around the world. Some are quite complicated, others less so. And if you don’t want the headache of making your own blend, there are some great kits that do it all for you.

As for wine, we really love the Jam Shed Shiraz with its big juicy jammy flavours and rich body. It’s also reasonably priced, which is definitely what you want when you’re making mulled wine.

We have the whole recipe for mulled wine here and for a limited time, you get a mulled wine kit along with jam jar glass mugs with every bottle of Jam Shed Shiraz you buy.

The post 3 warm cocktails for chilly evenings appeared first on Mr and Mrs Romance.

With cocktails, there’s a golden rule of three that most great drinks follow: spirit, sweet and bitter. Together these elements create balance, and the negroni – with it’s equal parts gin, vermouth and Campari – has that in spades.

But with so many gins around, there are myriad ways of changing the flavour, look and feel of this excellent cocktail.

Here are 5 of our favourites.

5 gins to mix up your negroni

We’ve chosen these five gins because they all offer something unique, but the basic negroni recipe is infinitely adjustable.

A different vermouth, more Campari, a splash of soda on top to create a spritz… your options are only limited by your imagination. And your bar stock!

Stone Pine Orange Blossom Gin

This remarkable Aussie gin from Stone Pine in Bathurst NSW is one of our favourites. Juniper forward but with a delicious floral background, this gin in a negroni is amazing. There’s even a slight savoury note at the end.

The distiller Ian Glen forages the orange blossoms from trees in the Western Plains near his distillery and includes native botanicals like pink finger limes and lemon myrtle to amp up the citrus.

Get your Stone Pine Orange Blossom Gin here.

Bombay Sapphire Sunset special edition gin

New to the Australian market, Bombay Sapphire’s Sunset gin is less grassy and a little spicier than the regular one.

In a negroni, this gin’s mandarin peel and white cardamon play really well with the Campari, and the mellow turmeric works with the red vermouth, all to create a delicious cocktail.

Get your Bombay Sapphire Sunset at BWS or Dan’s here.

Hayman’s Sloe Gin

A true spirit of the English winter, making sloe gin is a labour of love. Sloe bushes have huge spikes to protect the little blue berries, but it’s worth the effort.

In a negroni, the sharp yet somehow sweet edge to Hayman’s classic dry gin adds a wonderful dimension.

Get your Hayman’s Sloe Gin in bottle shops nationally.

If you want an excellent Aussie sloe gin, get yourself a bottle of Brookie’s here.

Prohibition Shiraz Barrel Gin

There’s barrel-aged gin and then there’s this stroke of genius. Prohibition have used ex-bourbon barrels that were then used for Barossa Shiraz to age their whopping 60%ABV gin.

It’s not only given the spirit a beautiful amber glow but also an earthy, fruity flavour. In a negroni, Shiraz Barrel Gin adds so many levels it’s almost a different drink, and the higher alcohol content changes the texture too.

Buy your Prohibition Shiraz Barrel Gin in its beautiful bottle here.

Warner’s Rhubarb Gin

Husband-and-wife distillers Tom and Tina Warner from the Midlands in the UK were really the first to bring out a pink gin.

Their Rhubarb Gin shook the gin world to its foundations, especially because the colouring comes from the use of fresh rhubarb juice in the distilling process.

It gives the gin a sharp refreshing tang, and in a negroni you’ll find it elevates the herbaceous element of the Campari and pushes back against the vermouth well too.

Get your Warner’s Rhubarb Gin here.

Negronis are a lot of fun to play around with and it just shows how altering one element can change this drink so much.

In fact, swapping one ingredient out of this harmonious trio for something else is a neat trick to creating other cocktails completely.

Check out our cheat’s guide to cocktail making and our free downloadable here.

The post 5 gins to mix up your old negroni appeared first on Mr and Mrs Romance.

On the brink of the Devil’s Wilderness overlooking the eastern fringes of the Blue Mountains is Nick and Ally Ayres’ distillery – Karu.

Since 2017, the Ayres have been making their two gins – Affinity and Lightning – and winning some incredible accolades in the process.

But the whole time they’ve been crafting Karu’s excellent gins, Nick and Ally have also had something else in mind. Something with a bit more kick to it.

Morita Chipotle Vodka

When I first saw heard the name of this vodka, I immediately thought this was in honour of the late great Pat Morita – you might know him as Mr Miyagi of Karate Kid fame.

But this morita is a reference to a chilli in Mexico used for making chipotle sauce – and one of the prime ingredients in Karu Distillery’s unique spirit.

Also in the vodka is meco – another popular chipotle chilli – as well as a host of other fresh ingredients.

The way Karu Distillery have combined the smoky, earthy, sweet and spicy flavours and aromas of these two types of chilli with things like coriander seed, fresh lime, green capsicum and agave means there’s a lot happening with this spirit.

What does chipotle vodka taste like – and how can you drink it?

It’s important to remember this is not just a chilli-flavoured vodka; these ingredients have been distilled into the spirit rather than just added later.

Nick and Ally recommend drinking their Morita Vodka in a bloody mary or a margarita, or even just with lime and soda.

I actually think this stuff’s great on its own over ice, but then I got to thinking about other flavours that go with this wonderful deep, rich, smoky profile.

For more details, you can read our full review of Karu’s Morita Chipotle Vodka here.

Morita Chipotle Mole Martini recipe

When we think of the classic Mexican sauce mole, we think of chocolate, but it turns out it’s not as simple as that.

In Mexico, mole takes many forms. It’s a base sauce that everyone uses that contains at least a form of chilli and a form of aromatic like onion or garlic, but there are some that have over 30 different ingredients and become very complicated.

You can read a great in-depth explanation on what mole is here but the type of mole we focused on is the well-known one that includes chocolate in its flavours.

Chipotle Mole Martini Recipe

– 60ml Morita Chipotle Vodka
– Touch of dry vermouth
– 10ml white creme de cacao
– 3-4 dashes of chocolate bitters
– Chilli to garnish

Stir all ingredients with plenty of ice and strain into coup glass. Garnish with chilli – seeds removed if you like who you’re serving the drink to!

The gentle heat from the chillies in the Morita Vodka and all the other clever flavours there combine with the sweet and bitter chocolate umami notes perfectly.

You can watch me make this delicious cocktail on our IGTV as part of our Cocktail Hour series.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jim & Christina Butcher (@mrandmrsromance)

I also thought about adapting the Killer Bee – a cocktail recipe we featured in our Cocktail Party ebook, but I think this martini really accentuates the incredible depth of flavours in the vodka while also maintaining a Mexican identity.

You can buy your bottle of Karu Morita Chipotle Vodka here and read more about this excellent distillery here.

The post How to make the ultimate Mexican martini – the Morita Mole Martini appeared first on Mr and Mrs Romance.

On the second Saturday of June every year, the world celebrates the best thing you can do with juniper.

World Gin Day has been officially celebrated since 2009, but in reality, we’ve been blowing up the balloons and hanging the bunting for this wonderful spirit for a lot longer than that.

3 world-class gins for World Gin Day

Gin has seen an amazing resurgence in popularity in recent years and with it some amazing new craft distilleries doing wonderful things with gin.

So here are very different gins and some ideas for what to do with them.

Karu Distillery’s Lightning Navy Strength Gin

Tucked away at the feet of the Blue Mountains, NSW, Karu Distillery is run and owned by the excellent Ally and Nick Ayres – you can find out more about them here.

Their navy strength gin, Lightning, is a powerful yet well-structured gin, full of bright citrus, earthy herbs and zingy spices – many of which Nick and Ally grow onsite at the distillery.

And if you’re not sure what navy strength means, you can read all about it here.

There are so many things you can do with this gin, including drink it neat with a dash of water just like scotch. As a gin and tonic, this gin really shines, and we’ve got another top tip about G&Ts a bit later.

But you can also cook with this one. Here’s our recipe for Gin and Lemon Custard Tarts you seriously have to have a go at.

Warner’s Distillery’s Rhubarb Gin

Warner’s Distillery is an English gin also made by a husband-and-wife team. Tom and Tina Warner created their Rhubarb Gin using actual rhubarb juice, which turned the gin pink.

This pink gin trend took off based on their creation and is now a world phenomenon. But this was the first one.

Warner’s Rhubarb Gin actually makes an excellent boozy twist on the classic Eton mess dessert, which you can read all about here, but it also makes a delicious sour too:

– 50ml Warner’s Rhubarb Gin
– 25ml lemon juice
– 20ml sugar syrup
– dash of Angostura bitters
– 1 egg white

Shake everything over ice until the shaker is icy, then double strain into a glass, empty the ice and ‘dry shake’ again for another 10 seconds.

Pour into a coupe glass or a small tumbler and garnish with a lemon twist.

Smooth and velvety from the egg white, sharp and sherbety from the sugar and lemon, and a fresh pop of juiciness from the rhubarb, this version of the classic sour is excellent.

Bombay Sapphire

A household name, Bombay Sapphire is a truly international gin. Although it’s distilled in Hampshire, its ingredients come from far and wide – an ambassador for World Gin Day indeed.

Juniper from Tuscany, coriander from Morocco, lemon peel from Spain and cubeb berries from Java (plus another six botanicals) all go into this beautifully balanced gin.

And because it’s so well balanced, this is a real multitool for any home bar, and this Winter Fizz is a great place to start:

– 45ml Bombay Sapphire
– 20ml red vermouth
– 10ml lemon juice – strained to remove pulp
– 100ml tonic water
– orange twist to garnish

Build over plenty of ice in a collins glass and garnish with the long strip of orange.

The Cure tonic syrups

I love tonic syrups and these are amazing.

A lot of the time, the tonic water you buy in the shops – even the good stuff – is too powerful or doesn’t match the gin you’re using.

But tonic syrups – a bit like cordial – mean you can choose the strength of your tonic and these ones even give you different flavour profiles to put with your gin. These syrups are spot on for G&Ts and cocktails like Winter Fizz above. In fact drinking them without gin – especially the Aussie Bush syrup – is great too.

Made in Sydney by bartenders who struggled through the pandemic lockdowns, The Cure tonic syrups bring a bit of that professional cocktail bar feel home.

You just add the amount of soda water you want to the syrup and away you go. Since Christina got these for my birthday, our Sodastream’s been on double shifts!

The post 3 gins for World Gin Day and how to use them appeared first on Mr and Mrs Romance.

I love peated whisky. I love the intensity of flavours, the savoury depth, the sharp tang of iodine and the oily smokiness.

Christina does not love it.

Whenever I drink a heavily peated whisky, she winces, comparing the aroma to ‘that drunk uncle you always avoid at family parties’.

I, however, have a much more romantic reflection on peated whiskies. They make me thing of woodsmoke, cigars, salt spray and earthy wholesomeness.

I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

If you want a intro into different whisky styles, check out our story on scotch regions and other international whiskies here.

We also talk more about Australian whisky styles here too.

Check out our IGTV Cocktail Hour episode featuring For Medicinal Purposes here:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jim & Christina Butcher (@mrandmrsromance)

Peated whisky and Pure Scot Midnight Peat blended scotch

Very simply put, to make peated scotch, peat is used as fuel to roast germinated barley, which distillers then go on to make their whisky with. The intense smoke from the peat enters the grains and emerges as a (subjectively) beautiful profile in the end.

From this point, distillers have a choice.

They can either make a single malt peated whisky or they can sell portions of it to other distillers to make blended whisky.

Johnny Walker’s Green Label and Double Black Label have a bit of peated whisky in their blends for example.

But Bladnoch’s head distiller Dr Nick Savage does something different to make his peated blended whisky Pure Scot Midnight Peat.

Instead of adding peated whisky, he puts his blend into barrels that previously contained peated single malt. The result is astounding. Often, blends don’t have that much of a peat flavour, but this one has plenty. I’m astonished how much peaty flavour comes through.

What can you do with peated whisky?

Usually people – myself included – shy away from making cocktails with peated single malt scotch. It’s made to be sipped neat or with a touch of water and it feels wasteful to put it with any other flavour.

But distillers make blended whisky with a view to it going into cocktails. Blends also tend to be more affordable as well.

Midnight Peat is perfect for things like a smoky old fashioned or even a peated Manhattan, swapping out regular bourbon or rye for this peated blended whisky.

But here’s something a little different:

For Medicinal Purposes peated whisky cocktail

Ostensibly a honey, lemon and ginger drink, this is an adaptation of a recipe my mum and dad used to give us kids when we were sick – without the alcohol of course! I still use it today to help with head colds or sore throats.

And it works really well with Pure Scot Midnight Peat.

Here’s what you need

– 3 slices of fresh ginger

– 1tbsp honey

– 1tbsp lemon juice

– 60ml hot water

– 60ml Pure Scot Midnight Peat (or 30ml Midnight Peat and 30ml Pure Scot Virgin Oak 43 if you prefer more sweetness than smoke)

Here’s what you do

1. Pour hot water over ginger and muddle, then add honey and stir until dissolved.

2. Add ice and stir until chilled, then add lemon juice and scotch, and stir to combine.

3. Double strain into a sazerac or old fashioned glass and garnish with burnt lemon peal.

This drink can also be served without chilling as a hot toddy style drink on those extra chilly nights.

The fresh bright lemon, deep sweetness from the honey and a gentle warmth from the spicy ginger act as the perfect base for the smoky savoury whisky.

The post How to make this peated whisky cocktail from an old family recipe appeared first on Mr and Mrs Romance.

Do you remember your first espresso martini? That startling smoothness, the sweet coffee combo, the zing of caffeine to put your night right on track…

It’s an iconic cocktail – so much so that we’ve got our own recipe for an espresso martini here and we even created a new version of the classic in honour of our lovely friend Nikki Parkinson.

It’s called the Styling You mocha espresso martini and it’s delicious.

But when we were recently loaned a new coffee machine to play with, Christina and I thought we’d do something a bit different to the classic espresso martini.

How to make a Stay Up Till Tequila Sunrise

Here’s what you need

– 60ml tequila reposado like El Jimador
– Double shot of espresso
– 30ml Kahlua Salted Caramel edition
– 15-20ml lemon juice
– 3 dashes Angostura bitters
– Orange peel to garnish

Here’s what you do

1. Stir (or shake actually) all the ingredients over ice then strain into an old fashioned glass, served on the rocks or up.

2. Garnish with the orange peal.

3. Make this a longer drink by topping up with aranciata Italian style bitter orange soda.

Note: If you don’t have the salted caramel Kahlua, you can use the regular one but you might need to add a measure of simple syrup to bring up the sweetness. Dissolve equal parts caster sugar in hot water to make the syrup.

You can watch us make the Stay Up Till Tequila Sunrise in our Cocktail Hour episode on IGTV here.

The golden tequila and lemon juice are a classic combo, lightening the spirit and toning the acidity of the citrus accordingly.

Rich earthiness and bitterness of the espresso (and its all-important hit of caffeine) blend with the sweetness of the Kahlua, and the Angostura bitters delivers a herbaceous note that builds layers to the drink.

All together, these flavours create a bright refreshing cocktail with a zap of caffeine perfect for getting the party started.

But one of the most important things about this recipe is to use a good-quality espresso. If you don’t have a machine at home, get a takeaway from the local cafe… or ever better, get one of these:

Which coffee machine? Jura S8

We’ve been given a new coffee machine from Jura to play with – the Jura S8 – and we’re really impressed with this compact yet full-function espresso machine.

Cafe-style espresso machines tend to be messy, fiddly, long-winded and – unless you know what you’re doing – disappointing. Capsule machines give you consistency, speed and very little mess, but don’t allow you to modify or adjust things much.

This Jura machine is pretty much the sweet spot between the two.

It has an integral grinder, so you can use your own beans. You can change things like the temperature, volume and strength of different coffee styles, and the touchscreen gives you lots of types of coffee to choose from.

The machine is easy to use, and works quickly and quietly. And the used grounds collect in the tray inside, so there’s virtually no mess to worry about.

For an automatic machine, the quality of the coffee is amazing – especially the espresso, ristretto and long black.

The milk steamer is fine, but you’re never going to get that same cafe-quality silky finish.

You can shop the Jura S8 Coffee Machine here.

The post How to make an espresso cocktail with a difference appeared first on Mr and Mrs Romance.

What do strawberry jam, a legendary spy hero and an English distillery have in common?

The story begins over 300 years ago on farmland near the southeast coast of England. In the 1700s, the crops were grains and vegetables, but in 1885, the owners of the farm turned their hand to fruit crops and then to jam-making.

To begin with, these jams were all shipped and sold to Australia.

But the British public soon got a taste for these delicious preserves. And that’s where the spy comes in.

From Tiptree with Love

In Ian Fleming’s 1957 book From Russia with Love, the details of James Bond’s breakfast are divulged. Among a host of other comestibles, 007 enjoys “wholemeal toast with Jersey butter and… Tiptree ‘Little Scarlet’ strawberry jam” to start his day.

Little Scarlet is in fact a wild strawberry that the Wilkin Estates’ Tiptree Jam Company – alone in the world – cultivate and turn into this delicious spread.

Each jar has 60 berries in it and twice the fruit content of other commercial jams, which makes this preserve so popular.

The small, bright berries deliver a huge amount of flavour for their size, but are difficult to grow and even harder to harvest. But the result is worth it.

That’s the spirit

The village of Tiptree on the rural northeastern edge of Essex is not only home to the famous jam factory. It is also the birthplace of another national icon: Hayman’s Distillery.

Hayman’s has since moved their distillery to London, but not before collaborating with their jammy neighbours to create a delicious range of gin liqueurs, which just adds the James Bond-ness of the story.

To have 007’s favourite jam in an alcoholic format is a stroke of genius.

The Little Scarlet gin liqueur still maintains the juniper notes from Hayman’s excellent gin base, but the strawberries add a sweetness and bright freshness that make this a wonderful drink to enjoy.

3 ways to enjoy Little Scarlet Strawberry Gin Liqueur

1. On the rocks

As this is a liqueur, there’s a little more sweetness than if it were a true gin. A generous pour of Little Scarlet over ice makes a perfect aperitif. Alternatively, adding a splash of soda water makes the drink longer and freshens it up too.

2. Gin Royale

This classic gin cocktail works really well with the strawberry flavours of the Little Scarlet. A measure of the liqueur topped up with Champagne or a dry Prosecco makes a superb summer sipper. The colour from the liqueur gives the drink a beautiful blush too.

3. G&T

Another refreshing, light drink perfect for the warmer months, topping up a measure of Little Scarlet with a good quality tonic water is delicious. Little Scarlet is only 28%ABV, so it’s a lighter option on the alcohol front too.

The Artisan Drinks Company make a range of truly excellent tonic mixers, and I think their aesthetic works perfectly with the oh so very British jam, gin and James Bond of the story.

The Little Scarlet Gin Liqueur is bold enough and sweet enough to stand up to the herbs and bitterness of most tonics, but the Artisan Drinks Co’s London style blend works perfectly with this tipple.

The Artisan Drinks Co is the mastermind of a handful of F&B superstars, not least is Mikey Enright, gin genius and owner of Sydney’s cocktail apothecary The Barber Shop.

The tonics coming from The Artisan Drinks Co are delicate, dynamic and superbly balanced.

Blended by Mikey’s nuanced hand, each of the tonics – from the classic and skinny London styles to the agave lemon and pink citrus – goes with different gins, different seasons and even different cocktails. You can pretty much just drink them on their own they’re that good.

I also find the parallel that comes from using Artisan Drinks’ tonics with the Little Scarlet quite pleasing:

Wilkin Estates’ jam empire began with a trading relationship between the UK and Australia all those years ago. And this tonic is another pan-planetary collaboration between Aussies and Brits.

The post James Bond’s jam and a gin liqueur – the story of the Little Scarlet appeared first on Mr and Mrs Romance.