I haven’t brought you a cocktail for a while and this is a drink with a lineage.

Long, long ago a friend brought the recipe back from a bar in the US that specialised in ‘desert’ cocktails, it became an immediate hit with my lot. We spread the secret around all our favourite haunts (the old Full Moon in Brighton, The Embassy Islington in the early days) and it has garnished birthdays and Christmases ever since.

And as it was two of my favourite people’s birthdays recently I felt the time had come for it to rise again…

The idea is that you down the shot and suck on the sugary lemon and it tastes like chocolate cake - a novelty drink to amaze first yourself and then endless rounds of friends. A great party starter. There is something so joyous about the oral trickery you can’t help but laugh.

Ingredients

1/2 shot Frangelico (a hazelnut liqueur)
1/2 shot vodka
1 slice lemon
sprinkling of brown sugar

1 Mix alcohols together in a shot glass, sprinkle the sugar on the lemon
2 Repeat until everyone has one
3 Think of a glorious cheer, clink, drink and suck. Voila - chocolate cake.

The secret to a great Moscow Mule is the quality of your ginger beer - and make no mistake it must be ginger beer, that white, cloudy, spicy, gorgeous zing of a drink, and not the insiped, clear brown meuh of ginger ale (whatever the Smirnoff ads might tell you - ignore them, Smirnoff is wrong about the ginger ale. Oh and you can’t make one without lime either - fools!).

Get the spiciest ginger beer you can find, Fentiman’s for preference but Jamaica Ginger is also good.

Ingredients

Ice
1/2 fresh lime
Good slug of Vodka (50ml is good)
Ginger beer
Sprig of mint (if you’re feeling festive!)

makes 1 cocktail

1 Put ice in glass and squeeze lime into it
2 Add vodka and top up with ginger beer to taste

Enjoy (responsibly) very good on a hot summers day/sultry night.

Swap the vodka for golden rum for an equally tasty Jamaican Mule.

Well it’s finally sunny at Glastonbury so I can stop being anxious for friends who are there (I couldn’t face another year of mud, too tired, too tired - but I’ll be back) and start being just the tiniest bit jealous of dancing in a field with the sun on their faces surrounded by friends and the magic of the music festival par extraordinaire.

So to make my sunny Saturday a bit happier and to toast the festival emerging victorious from the mud I am having a kir royale, wine cocktail of delight.

Strictly speaking it should be made with Champagne but I prefer it with a good sparkling white, I like my Champagne unadulterated and flowing;) Prosecco is a little faint for this (works better in a Bellini) so I’d use something Chardonnay based.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon Crème de Cassis (alcoholic blackcurrant liquer from France)
Good quality sparkling wine

1 take a tall fluted glass (like the one in the picture above) and put in the Crème de Cassis then top up with sparkling wine. It should be a delicate bruised pink colour, or a little darker if you prefer it sweeter - put in less cassis and top up if you aren’t sure.
2 Enjoy with good friends preferably on a beautiful sunny evening - also works well as an aperitif before a good dinner.

Hope it’s sunny where you are too.

Well folks, my sincere apologies for my lengthy absence, work, MA and another project (not to mention the decorating of the flat) have taken up every waking hour as well as not a few sleeping ones these last 2 months. But I’m back and in a party mood.

So let’s talk cocktails, the cocktail is not a drink to be drunk all night long - although a sunny afternoon of champagne cocktails is a delight everyone should experience - but rather it is an elegant extravagance in a glass that should be enjoyed by the handful at most, after that you can only taste the alcohol and sugar so you may as well move on and not spoil yourself for your breakfast fruit juice.

I love cocktails, I love the drama of the making, the glistening ice and vibrant colours, the heady tastes and excellent accessories (a martini glass is a design classic) and the element of sparkle and mischief they can hold. So with this in mind I will bring you at least a cocktail a week, there are few that I make myself at home (a cocktail really works better in a bar, park or festival) but this next is one that is truly a great drink that can easily be mixed as a sophisticated party drink, just make sure you stick to the measures, too much alcohol turns a cocktail into sweet petrol and delights no-one:

The White Russian, king of all the milky cocktails as it is neither cloying nor too creamy but rather like a smooth coffee on the tongue. I never use cream in mine (too cloying) and prefer Khalua to creme de cacao (more of a coffee bite).

Ingredients

Ice
1 part Khalua
1 part Vodka
3 fingers of milk (full fat is best but semi-skimmed will do at a pinch)

makes 1 cocktail

1 Put ice in a large tumbler or medium high ball
2 Pour in Khalua and Vodka and then top up with the milk, if you pour carefully you can create a very attractive marbling to serve but mix well to drink.