All posts tagged: calvados

Cocktail of the week no.22: the Angel Face

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I was introduced to this cocktail by a barman at the Zetter Townhouse in Clerkenwell, and it’s one of the two drinks I’ve had in bars in recent months that I’ve desperately wanted to make for myself at home. The other was at “The Bar with No Name,” AKA 69 Colebrooke Row, and it was called “Silent Neon Flower.” Coincidentally, both of these bars owe their drinks menus to one man, Tony Conigliaro, who opened 69 Colebrooke Row and is the drinks consultant for Zetter Townhouse. I can’t recommend these two bars enough. They both feature incredibly knowledgeable and courteous bar/wait staff, who shimmer up to you like Jeeves but won’t make you feel like an idiot if you ask questions or mispronounce something. Certainly there are vast differences in decor (Zetter Townhouse describes itself as feeling like “the private residence of an eccentric (and fabulous!) Great Aunt,” which I can confirm to be true, whereas 69 Colebrooke Row is all sleek wood with the slight air of a 1930s railway station; nonetheless they share the same …

More Seasonal Cocktails: Fig Smashes

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I think the first time I encountered a wild fig, I was about 22 and in Greece having a mooch around some ruins. As I come from a family that’s not particularly adventurous with its food, and has strong leanings towards the boiled meat and potatoes side of English cuisine, I’m pretty sure I’d never eaten a fig in any form before then. I certainly wasn’t familiar with this bulging little purple fruit, and had to be shown how to tackle it by an Italian acquaintance. I found this all rather embarrassing, but on the bright side, the fig was delicious, and I now know how to eat them. You live and learn. Most of my subsequent fig encounters, though, have been in the context of cheese. This is, of course, a brilliant pairing, but then I’m always favourably inclined towards anything that comes with cheese – if I wasn’t writing a blog about cocktails I’d probably write one about cheese. But as with any other seasonal fruit, my first instinct now is to shove it into …

Cocktail of the week no.20: the Jack Rose

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One of the things I always loved most (and hopefully will be able to appreciate again soon) about living in America is the enthusiastic celebration of all things autumn-related (sorry, fall-related). England does not do this with quite the same level of abandon, as we live in a state of near-perpetual autumn, and I miss not being able to move without tripping over some golden-hued display of leaves, pumpkins, chrysanthemums, and above all, apples. As a side note, if there was some way to get fresh apple cider donuts shipped over to the  UK, I would do it in a heartbeat (please tell me if there is), for they are the pinnacle of human culinary achievement.   This week’s classic cocktail, then – the Jack Rose – is a celebration of apples, not using fresh apples (I’m getting to that), but apple brandy instead. Its origins are, like those of many classic cocktails, buried in history, with various stories competing for legitimacy. Perhaps the most exotic stories concern the involvement of Bald Jack Rose, a notorious gambler and …