Italian housewife business! Sweet Rhubarb and grapefruit jelly and marmalade on toast followed by slightly bitter berries. It begs for Prosecco.
Classic French aperitif. Waves of honeyed tropical fruit and glace cherries with smashed sauvignon grapes and floral notes. Starts out sweet and moves into a dry zesty almost zingy finish.
The Godfather of red vermouths. Mouthful of spicy Christmas pudding followed by waves of plums, cherries, cloves, vanilla and finally cinnamon.
Go back in time to the downright dirty history of the American speakeasy and you’ll find Angostura Orange bitters in a huge number of different drinks. Rising to prominence during prohibition many classic cocktails simplyaren’t complete without a shot of Angostura Orange. A classic example of bitters, one of the few that survived US Prohibition, flavours of orange and geranium are most prominent followed by spicy cardamom and coriander. Shake into your Martini, your Manhattan or even a classic Champagne cocktail.
Setting the standard in white rum, Bacardi is known worldwide. In 1862 it became the world’s first premium aged white rum and using charcoal filtration was key to its original development. Bacardi is a necessity for many world famous cocktails and without we’d not have the classic Daiquiri, the Mojito or the Cuba Libre. Smooth and gentle on the palate it’s wonderful however you choose to mix it and offers a taste of Cuba which can’t be compared.
Don Julio Anejo 1942 spends up to two and half year ageing, nearly enough to be classed as extra anejo. It’s stilled in a single pot still and has the wonderful spiced aromas of cinnamon, sweet agave, vanilla and interesting Turkish delight. The taste is deep with cinder toffee notes, the continual flavour of the agave and bursts of sweet, zesty citrus. Dry and nutty the finish is long with notes of smoke.
Dried pink grapefruit and earl grey tea followed by a strong liquorice undercurrent that leads into a sort of crushed Parma Violet sweets affair. Kick is woody and spicy and leads into juniper, bergamot and faint ginseng notes. All in all bloody good.