ABSOLUTELY | FOOD & TR AV EL
WE’LL DRINK TO THAT... Tristan Stephenson, owner of critically acclaimed cocktail joints Purl and The Worship Street Whistling Shop, picks the top tipples guaranteed to impress this Valentine’s Day
Ingredients • 50ml Scotch whisky • 25ml Martini rosso vermouth • 2 dashes (2ml) of orange bitters • a twist of orange zest, to garnish
tir all the ingredients together with cubed ice for around 90 seconds. Strain into a chilled coupe glass and garnish with a small twist of orange zest. You might like to add a touch of sugar syrup if you have a sweet tooth, or depending on what Scotch you use.
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ESPRESSO MARTINI Ingredients • 50ml/2 oz. belvedere vodka • 20ml/2⁄3 oz. espresso • 10ml/1⁄3 oz. sugar syrup (see below)
hake the ingredients together with cubed ice and single strain into a chilled martini glass. Back when I first cut my teeth as a cocktail bartender, when bigger cocktail lists were better and flaming an orange twist was regarded as innovative, the Espresso Martini was the height of cool. Caffeine, alcohol, sugar. Everything the body needs for a good night out, and all held together by our 1980s superhero, the martini glass. The Espresso Martini is based on a drink created by the UK’s crown prince of cocktails, Dick Bradsell, again while he was working at the Soho Brasserie. The story goes (and it does vary depending on who you ask) that an attractive female model approached the bar where Dick was working and asked him for a drink that would ‘pick me up, then f*ck me up’ – if only all drink requests came with such exact requirements. Dick eyed the bar’s shiny new espresso machine and promptly mixed vodka, espresso and sugar together, then served it in a martini glass. The Espresso Martini was born. The growing popularity of espresso coffee in the 1980s and 90s made the Espresso Martini an inevitability. The espresso in the drink achieves three things at once: first, it masks the alcohol in the vodka; second, it gives a caffeine kick to the receiver; and third, it turns the drink
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a stunning opaque brown. Also, if you use a good-quality coffee and extract the espresso correctly, you’ll be rewarded with a pale foamy head, produced by the CO² bubbles dissolved in brewed coffee. Serve an Espresso Martini in a half-pint glass and it really does look like a Guinness! Sugar syrup
Sugar syrup (2:1 ratio). To make about one of litre sugar syrup, gently heat 660g caster sugar (you can also use soft brown/ muscovado sugar) with 300ml water and 30g vodka in a saucepan. Once all the sugar has dissolved, bottle it and pop it in the fridge for up to six months.
The Curious Bartender: The Artistry and Alchemy of Creating the Perfect Cocktail by Tristan Stephenson with photography by Addie Chinn.£16.99, Ryland Peters & Small.
NEGRONI Ingredients • 25 ml Tanqueray no. ten gin • 25 ml Campari • 25 ml Martini rosso vermouth • a slice of lemon (or grapefruit), to garnish
tir all the ingredients over cubed ice for 60 seconds, then strain into a chilled rocks glass with cubed ice (or use a large hand-cracked piece of ice). Garnish with a slice of lemon.
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