Xmas Gifts Parade 2021 - Kick-off

It’s time to kick off our annual Xmas Gifts Parade. We are running a little bit behind with photoshoots, but we’ll try to publish a wonderful series of mouth-watering drinks between today and Christmas Eve. 

I always love a good start, today I’m not sharing just one tasty recipe with you. I’m sharing THREE tasty recipes. You want more? How about this: You will be able to enjoy all three of these drinks at Paal 26 Grand Café until the end of January. 

The first drink is a Rum Martinez, but without Maraschino liqueur. Let’s do it a bit different. 

On Double Strainger we always try to keep recipes as easy as possible, with bottles you’ll be able to find in any supermarket or liqueur store. Another threshold might be a bottle that you really never use. You won’t buy a “special” bottle for just one single cocktail recipe. Today I’m going to eliminate the bottle of Maraschino liqueur from the Martinez recipe. I have re-balanced the flavours to get the taste right. The bottle that I use as a substitute is a cherry syrup. You will absolutely use the rest of this bottle. You can mix it with soda for your kids or even pour it over your ice cream. Be careful, I used Monin Cherry Syrup which is very liquid and is intended for use in drinks. If you buy a cherry syrup which is much thicker, you need to adjust the quantity otherwise it will be too sweet.  

For all three recipes in this article I was looking for a rum that’s just a little bit sweeter and spicier than the average rum. I’ve selected two bottles that will really work. The first is Zacapa Rum from Guatemala. I’ve used it many times before and it has that special sweetness that really works for this style of drinks. Another great bottle is Rumbullion spiced rum, a rum with a fantastic taste created by the producers of the well-known Bathtub Gin. 

This award-winning spiced rum is a blend of Caribbean rum, Madagascar vanilla, orange peel, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom. It’s rich and complex and really fits what I had in mind for the end-of-year holidays. This is the rum you want to sip around the Christmas tree.

• Nose: Sweet Madagascar vanilla, cola, cloves and cinnamon. This is Christmas in a glass.
• Taste: Sweet, spice, orange, clove, honey, cola. An explosion of flavours.
• Finish: Long finish with creamy vanilla.

The cinnamon, vanilla and cloves also work fantastic for the other two cocktails I had in mind. Enhancing the flavour with some extra cinnamon syrup had the exact result I was looking for. I kept the recipe for the Spice 75 pretty sour, because I personally like it this way. If you want slightly more sweetness, add another 5 ml of syrup.

Rum Martinez

Ingredients
45 ml Rum
22 ml Pinguino Sweet vermouth
10 ml Tio Pepe Fino Sherry
10 ml Monin Cherry Syrup
2 dashes Orange bitters

Method
Add everything to your shaker. Give it a good shake for 10 seconds. Strain in a chilled coupe or Champagne flute. Garnish is optional, you could add a sweet cherry.

Spice 75

Ingredients
40 ml Rum
10 ml Monin Cinnamon Syrup
20 ml Lime Juice
Prosecco

Method
Add everything but the Prosecco to a shaker with lots of ice. Give it a good shake for 12 seconds. Fine strain in a Champagne glass. Top with Prosecco. Give it just one gentle stir. 

Xmas Old Fashioned

Ingredients

50 ml Rum
10 ml Monin Cinnamon Syrup
Dash of nut bitters

Method
Build in a tumbler glass with lots of ice. Stir in the glass. Garnish with orange. Pair it with a few of those small cinnamon cookies or a piece of black chocolate.

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.

Magical cocktails with Illugin Gin

In the glass, most gins look pretty much the same. But they all have a very different bouquet of tastes and aromas. This Gin is different in every possible way. It’s not a London Dry Gin and it has a very sexy color, which changes while you mix your drink. 

Illugin is a new gin by a small company located at The Belgian coast. In a market that’s swamped with small batch gins, they wanted to launch a new Belgian gin. But it had to be a special one. A real eye catcher with a wonderful taste.  

The most important difference with the average gin in your supermarket : This is an Old Tom Distilled Gin. Slightly sweeter than a London Dry Gin, dryer than a Dutch Genever, but certainly not so sweet as some sticky Spanish gins. 

Illugin contains a selection of botanicals such as coriander, caraway, angelica root and blueberries. And here comes the magical part - Among the botanicals used to produce this gin, there’s also a flower that adds “color changing magic” to your drinks. Illugin markets this flower as a secret, but this isn’t the first color changing gin I’ve seen. The flower that’s responsible for this party trick is the Clitoria Ternatea, also known as the Blue Pea or Butterfly Pea, originally grown in Asia and used mainly in tea.

It’s really fun to play with and it will amaze your guests. The color changing happens easily by adding some citrus or tonic to your drink. This colorful gin doesn’t contain any artificial colorants, only natural botanicals. 

So this might not be the first Butterfly Pea Gin I’ve seen, it’s definitely one of the tastiest. I really love the taste and aroma of this Old Tom Gin and had lots of fun playing around with it. I used it in three serves this week, which were all pretty and delicious: I mixed up the obligatory Gin & Tonic (watch the cool video on Facebook and Instagram, it’s made with my smartphone by my 9y old daughter !!!). 

After that I also mixed up a Gin Sour and a Martinez. The Martinez is a classic recipe that really needs an Old Tom gin to get it 100% right. For the Gin & Tonic I used a 1/3 ratio with a neutral Indian Tonic. For both cocktails I’ll add the recipes below. 

Magical Gin Sour

Ingredients
50 ml Illugin Old Tom gin
30 ml Fresh lemon juice
10 ml Simple syrup
1 egg white

Method
Add all ingredients to a shaker with just ONE single icecube. Shake hard for 10 seconds.
Add more ice and shake again for 10 seconds to cool it down. Strain in a pre-chilled coupe. 

Magical Martinez

Ingredients
50 ml Illugin Old Tom Gin
25 ml Starlino sweet vermouth
7 ml Leonce Extra Dry vermouth
7 ml Maraschino liqueur
1 dash Angostura bitters

Method
Stir all ingredients together in a mixing glass with lots of ice. Strain into a pre-chilled Martini glass. Garnish with a Maraschino cherry. 

If you can handle a slightly more difficult bar-skill, also express a piece of orange peel above the glass to spread some of those fantastic oils. Throw away the peel, don’t put it in your drink. 

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.

Stijlvolle Geschenktips : Rum Martinez met Zacapa 23

 

Enkele maanden geleden mocht ik samen met chocolatier Dominique Persoone de verschillende rums van Zacapa ontdekken tijdens een mooie foodpairing lunch in The Jane. Een mooie kadobox van dit merk mocht dan ook zeker niet ontbreken in deze editie van de reeks “Stijlvolle Geschenktips”. Deze box is momenteel verkrijgbaar in heel wat drankenhandels en supermarkten, de doos bevat een fles Zacapa 23 rum en twee mooie glazen.

Deze box mocht vooral niet ontbreken omdat het een prima gelegenheid is om nog eens een lekkere cocktail te maken met deze rum. Het persbureau van Zacapa stelde voor om er eens een variatie op de Martinez mee te maken. Om één of andere reden lukte het hun op dat ogenblik niet om het voorgestelde recept door te mailen, dus ging ik gewoon zelf aan de slag op de typische “zo eenvoudig mogelijke” Double Strainger manier. Later kreeg ik alsnog het recept, dus je krijgt beide versies…

Rum Martinez

Ingrediënten voor versie A (=Originele Zacapa recept)
45 ml Zacapa 23 Rum
22 ml Belsezar Rode Vermouth
10 ml Amontillado Sherry
15 ml Kersenlikeur
2 dashes Orange bitters

Ingrediënten voor versie B (= de uitgeklede Double Strainger versie)
5 cl Zacapa 23 Rum
25 ml Punt e Mes Rode Vermouth
10 ml Gonzalez Byass Nectar (PX Sherry)
2 dashes Chocolate bitters (of orange bitters, naar keuze)

Bereiding
Kies versie A of B. Voeg alle ingrediënten samen in een mengbeker met veel ijs. Roeren gedurende een 15tal seconden. Serveren in een voorgekoeld coupeglas. Versier met een zeste van sinaasappel.

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.