My New Year's resolution

This blog started in January 2016, so starting a new year always feels special for this blog too. Next month I’ll be running this boozy online diary for 7 years already. Maybe it’s time to try a few new things... 

This Christmas, my better half gave me this cocktail book, themed on the popular “Peaky Blinders” Netflix series. In most cases, when cook- or cocktail books are linked to a popular TV series or film, they are absolute rubbish.
In the best cases, they contain a few classic drinks that you’ll find in a thousand other books, but I’ve seen more books that weren’t even worth the paper they were printed on. 

And then I got this book…  

Browsing through the pages, I was amazed. The book contains 40 recipes of semi-classic drinks, that are adapted to the Peaky Blinders timeframe. The book oozes the prohibition era and speakeasy bars, not in Al Capone’s Chicago like might be expected, but we zoom in on the roaring twenties in Birmingham, England. 

While looking at the 40 recipes, I couldn’t help thinking I will absolutely love all these drinks. The Birmingham Sour, Red Horse, Vendetta, Ulster Force, Derby, Easy Dizzy, … So, I had this idea…

In 2023, I will mix up most (or probably all) drinks in this book and be further inspired to make some new original recipes in the same Peaky and prohibition style. Some of the recipes in the book will of course be slightly adapted to my personal taste. 

Enjoy the end-of-year festivities. Make sure you’re ready for an engaging 2023. I’ll welcome all of you to lots of tasty recipes in the New Year. By order of the Peaky Blinders, have a healthy and prosperous New Year. 

Disclaimer: All pictures and texts are copyrighted by Geert Conard and Esito Management & Communications unless stated otherwise in the article. While some items might have been gifted by the producer or distributor, these are in no way paid promotions or recommendations.

Arduenna 75

When a friend of the family drops in for a visit and it also happens to be her birthday, we rely on a true classic and give it just a little twist. 

I used Arduenna gin as a base for this drink. It’s an organic gin distilled in the south of Belgium, close to the border with Luxembourg. This fruity gin is distilled 6 times and contains Mirabelle plums, fir (pine) and elderflower. Everything is sourced locally in the Ardennes.  

Arduenna 75

Ingredients (For 3 servings)

80 ml Arduenna Gin

60 ml Lemon juice

20 ml Simple Syrup

Champagne, Prosecco or another good quality sparkling wine

Method

Add the gin, lemon juice and sugar to your shaker with lots of ice. Shake for 10 seconds and double strain in your Champagne glasses. This should be enough for three glasses. Top with bubbly and give it just one gentle stir. Garnish is overrated, better serve it with some nice bites. 

Disclaimer: All pictures and texts are copyrighted by Geert Conard and Esito Management & Communications unless stated otherwise in the article. While some items might have been gifted by the producer or distributor, these are in no way paid promotions or recommendations.

A bitter-sweet end-of-year

Another festive idea. Let’s add some seasonal flavours to our drink. For this variation on the Negroni, I wanted to get some extra taste into the Italian bitter. I poured some red Italian bitter in a jar and added cinnamon, star anise and dried orange peel. I gave it a shake and left it like that for a couple of days, before I used this bitter to mix up a seasonal Negroni. 

Santa’s Negroni

Ingredients

For the seasonal bitter: 

30 ml Red Italian bitter for each serve (I used Caffo, feel free to use others like Campari or Select)

1 cinnamon stick

1 star anise

2 tablespoons dry orange peel

For the drink:

30 ml Italian bitter “seasoned”

30 ml Sweet vermouth (I used Cinzano)

30 ml Gin (I used SorGin, which is distilled from grapes)

Method

Add the three ingredients in even parts to your tumbler with lots of ice cubes. Stir for 15 seconds. Garnish with cinnamon and orange. 

TIP: I had some of this tasty seasoned bitter left. So, I decided to add 30 ml to a Champagne flute, added just two or three drops of simple syrup and topped with a good quality sparkling wine. Delicious!!!

Disclaimer: All pictures and texts are copyrighted by Geert Conard and Esito Management & Communications unless stated otherwise in the article. While some items might have been gifted by the producer or distributor, these are in no way paid promotions or recommendations

When Santa had too many Cosmos (NA)

What a week… so much fun to create the seasonal drinks. Many people seem to wonder what I mixed up on Christmas Eve. My better half enjoyed a glass of Domaine du Ry d’Argent Nell Brut, a Belgian sparkling wine based on Pinot Auxerrois, Chardonnay and Johanniter. I had a Negroni Sbagliato with that same bubbly. For my daughter (she’s 11), I created a non-alcoholic variation of the Cosmopolitan. That might sound easier than it is. But the result was a real winner and my fashionista daughter absolutely loved this SATC-style drink. 

What’s the tricky part? You need a good base for your drink. A product with some body and a strong tail. That’s usually where drinks like this fail. I was happy to find something that works because that body and tail are really the difference between a soft drink and a mocktail. 

Fryns Spice is a non-alcoholic aperitif based on ginger, lemon, lime and red pepper. Those strong and natural flavours are a good base for a tasty mocktail. 

From the original recipe, I swapped Cointreau for orange juice. But since the juice was of course less sweet than a liqueur, I also added a tiny bit of simple syrup. 

When Santa had too many Cosmos (NA)

Ingredients

50 ml Fryns Spice 0%

30 ml Orange juice

30 ml Cranberry juice

15 ml Lime juice

7 ml Simple syrup

Method

Add all ingredients to a shaker with lots of ice. Shake hard for 15 seconds. Fine strain (that’s a must!!!) in a Martini glass. You could garnish with a lemon or orange twist, but it’s not absolutely necessary. 

Disclaimer: All pictures and texts are copyrighted by Geert Conard and Esito Management & Communications unless stated otherwise in the article. While some items might have been gifted by the producer or distributor, these are in no way paid promotions or recommendations.

Santa's Cosmo

Let’s start with unplugging one of the world’s largest clichés. The Cosmopolitan is not a drink that’s only suitable for single young women.

When prepared as it should, it’s a very nice sour-style alternative for a Martini. I’m not a single young woman and I do like a good Cosmo. 

So, what’s wrong with Cosmo’s? In many bars they use a recipe which is a bit too sweet. This destroys the balance and gives you a sticky drink that’s not how it’s meant to be. I don't like drinks that taste like a lollipop. 

Let’s try this variation with an extra layer of malty flavours. Less sweet in the glass, but with a sugar rim instead to compensate. It was an experiment, but I really loved the result. 

P.S. Next on my TO DO list: I want to re-create this drink, but without alcohol. To be continued.

Santa’s Cosmo

Ingredients

50 ml Genever (I used Fryns Premium)

30 ml Cointreau or Triple Sec

30 ml Cranberry juice

15 ml Fresh lime juice

Method

1. Gently rub some simple syrup on the rim of your Martini glass. Dip in sugar candy.

2. Add all ingredients to your shaker with lots of ice. Shake for 15 seconds. 

3. Strain your drink in the glass.

4. Optional/advanced: Cut a piece of orange peel, give it a firm twist over your glass to spray some of the oils from the peel over your drink, add the peel to your glass.

If you feel really confident: Hold a lighted match between the peel and the drink while releasing those oils. This will warm up the oils to make them even more flavourful. 

Disclaimer: All pictures and texts are copyrighted by Geert Conard and Esito Management & Communications unless stated otherwise in the article. While some items might have been gifted by the producer or distributor, these are in no way paid promotions or recommendations.

Italian Winter Spritz

For this Christmas season, I wanted to mix a couple of variations on the Negroni. And because it’s a festive season, I wanted these drinks to be slightly more challenging than what you normally see on this blog. 

The mission of this blog is to share easy, but tasty recipes. Simple cocktails that you can reproduce at home. Does this mean I never mix up a more advanced drink? Of course not, but those drinks are not what this blog is all about. 

But just maybe, you would love a more advanced drink for the Christmas holidays? If that’s the case, I’ll share one of my recent favourites with you… six ingredients, but still pretty easy to mix. It’s so tasty, you might even decide to serve it as a punch. Not festive enough?
Replace the tonic with a good quality Prosecco… solved. 

Italian Winter Spritz

Ingredients

25 ml Italian red bitter (I used Caffo Mazzodi L’Aperitivo Italiano)

25 ml Sweet vermouth (I used Cinzano)

25 ml Genever (I used Fryns Premium)

20 ml Fresh lemon juice

10 ml Simple Syrup

Schweppes Indian Tonic.

Method

Add all ingredients, except for the tonic, to a shaker with lots of ice. Give it a good shake for 15 seconds and strain it into your favourite cocktail glass. Add lots of ice and top with a good quality tonic. Give it one more stir and garnish with a slice of lemon. 

Disclaimer: All pictures and texts are copyrighted by Geert Conard and Esito Management & Communications unless stated otherwise in the article. While some items might have been gifted by the producer or distributor, these are in no way paid promotions or recommendations.

Sweet Tea Old Fashioned

Most recipes featuring a combination of whisky and tea are highball drinks, measuring three times more tea than whisky. I really wanted to try a different approach. I have experimented with tea infusions before and I remember some of those results being very tasty. This time I don't want to create a syrup with tea-flavour, I want to use the tea as a tasty sweetener. 

What I want to do today is start with some tea, made with fresh ‘Bring me back to Bali’ tea, with lemongrass and lemon peel, spicy ginger, bamboo and pepper. While the tea is still hot, I’ll add lots of sugar, the result should be something in between a sweet cup of tea and simple syrup. After cooling down, this tea will be used to sweeten the drink instead of sugar, simple syrup or other sweet elements. I want this drink to be very easy, so everyone who wants a sip can try this at home. A few drops of bitters complete this Eastern-style Old Fashioned. 

Yesterday, I already shared a reel on Instagram with this drink, but you still need the recipe.

Sweet Tea Old Fashioned

Ingredients

For the tea: 

A tea egg filled with Tastea “Bring me back to Bali” tea

4 to 5 lumps of cane sugar

Water

For the cocktail:

50 ml whisky (I used Roe & Co Irish whiskey)

50 ml sweetened tea

1 dash of bitters (I used calamansi bitters, but do try with the bitters of your choice)

Method

Let’s keep it easy and build this Old Fashioned directly in your glass. Add whisky, tea and bitters, fill the glass with ice cubes and stir for 15 seconds. Garnish with fresh lemon. 

P.S. Want to start experimenting yourself? Order your tea at www.premiumtea.store before 31/12 and use the code “STRAINGER” for a 10% discount on all products. 

Disclaimer: All pictures and texts are copyrighted by Geert Conard and Esito Management & Communications unless stated otherwise in the article. While some items might have been gifted by the producer or distributor, these are in no way paid promotions or recommendations.

The story of Fryns (+foodpairing!)

I’m always a sucker for a good story with an unexpected plot twist. Last week I was invited by Céleste Fryns, to visit the Fryns distillery in Hasselt. Fryns is an iconic brand, started in 1887. It was Guillaume Fryns who started a genever distillery in a building called “In ‘t Claverblad” in Hasselt, very close to the governor's building. Today, the clover image, which was present on that original building, is still the company logo.  

When Guillaume passed away, his sons Guillaume Jr. and Jules continued the activities. Guillaume Jr. added a malt- and ice factory and they also expanded with sales offices in Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent and Mons. These were the early days of logistics, driving their lorries for three days to get enough bottles to the sales offices. They spend lots of time creating great packaging and POP materials, to sell attractive products during the roaring twenties. 

During the second World War activities ceased because Jules refused to work with the Nazis. After 1945, he started rebuilding the company. The Fryns company kept innovating and was the first company to launch longdrinks and pre-mix cocktails. 

In 1979 the company was acquired by investors, who quickly shift it to Bruggeman, a large holding specialising in spirits and owned by the even larger group La Martiniquaise Bardinet. Later this group also acquired another genever brand, Smeets. A new plant was built near the ringway, but the Fryns brand moved to the Bruggeman HQ in Ghent. This was almost the end of a great story because Bruggeman marketed Smeets as their primary brand for ‘Hasseltse Jenever’. 

But blood is thicker than water. In 2017, Michel Fryns saw the opportunity to buy the bankrupt “Graanstokerij Wissels” and re-build the distillery on Hasselt soil. Soon after this event, he succeeded in acquiring the brand name from Bruggeman and he brought the company back to its roots. After 25 years Fryns is home again. Important fact: If you want to market your spirit as “Hasseltse Jenever”, the malt wine needs to be distilled on Hasselt soil. This is a protected origin.

In 2021, Céleste Fryns, fifth generation, joined the company. They now have a great dream to get Fryns and “Hasseltse Jenever” back on the map. They market genever as a versatile, tasty and Belgian top product. 

Genever has a public image which you might compare with Tequila. Everyone has this “mental image” of drinking these spirits as a shot. In the case of genever, it’s a shot often drunk by old men. But just like Tequila, this is also a fantastic spirit that can be used as a base for many delicious cocktails. For starters, in every cocktail that contains gin, you can replace the gin with genever. It will add an extra, extremely tasty layer… because of the malt wine, used in the production of genever. 

So yes, I also want to promote mixed drinks with genever and in the next weeks, months or even years you will see several mixed drinks with genever popping up on this blog. 

But for this article, I did something completely different. I remembered an old tradition, I picked up during my travels in Scandinavia. I served a bowl of freshly cooked soup of Belgian endives (Chicon/witloof), with a shot of Fryns Premium Jenever on the side. A match made in heaven. You can find the recipe for the soup on my better half’s foodblog, Tineke’s Cucina. 

Disclaimer: All pictures and texts are copyrighted by Geert Conard and Esito Management & Communications unless stated otherwise in the article. While some items might have been gifted by the producer or distributor, these are in no way paid promotions or recommendations.