Good morning merry folk of drinks tube.
Welcome back to cocktail request week, day 3, down here at Old Street tube station.
We've been taking your requests for cocktails all week and today we have got a wonderful
image from mrsmettedam on instagram who sent us this wicked picture of a lime and basil
parfait, we've been salivating over it all morning.
So we have decided to use that as inspiration for our first drink of the day.
We are calling it a perfect summer - parfait summer, and we will be using in it; some basil,
some fresh lime juice, a little bit of caster sugar so we get a nice sweet and sour balance
there with the herbs and the basil, a dry french vermouth for this lovely herbacious
sort of flavour to it French elderflower liquor it just seems to work with everything and
some egg white of course.
We want to try and replicate the texture of that parfait, so there we are.
So we're going to start with out sour, lime juice, 25ml, this is a 50ml measure so about
half fill this.
Then to balance that we need around a teaspoon of caster sugar.
The caster sugar has kind of got that granulated texture to it, if we mix it all up with the
lime juice, it gives a nice consistency to it, nice and almost syrup like.
French elderflower liquor, we are going to use, round about a tablespoon, which is 15
ml of that.
This will bring a nice fragrance to the whole cocktail of course we are talking about the
dry French vermouth we're gonna use 60mls of this so 1 of these plus a little bit more.
Plenty.
Next we're gonna add our basil which was obviously the key flavour component of her parfait.
Drop that it.
We're not gonna muddle it up or anything like that because Basil when you muddle it up it
does become quite bitter so which is why this drink is on the touch of the sweet side as
well.
So in here we have the basil we have our French vermouth we have our french elderflower liquor
we have lime, sugar erm we're gonna add a little bit of ice and then we're gonna add
our egg white.
There we are.
Now with the egg white we're always gonna try and give it a little bit of aeration,
whip it up a little bit first.
It just makes the whole thing work a little bit better in your drink.
So egg white its ok to use it in your drinks, if you don't wanna use it that's absolutely
fine but it does the alcohol in here is gonna help against things like salmonella and so
on and it does lend this drink wonderful texture so id recommend doing it.
Its about a tablespoon so just less than one egg white.
And then of course we have to shake it really really hard.
Shake it hard shake it with a smile.
Nice frost on the outside of the tin and then a lovely texture in the top of the drink,
have a quick look at that.
Pre-chilled cocktail glass here its really important to make sure your glass is as cold
as possible especially if your drinks cold.
I'm gonna put it through a fine strainer get rid of those little bits of basil you don't
want those stuck in your teeth do ya.
It is missing a little bit of something a little bit of something on top just to give
it that fresh summery look.
You can use a basil leaf if you've got it but we managed to get some borage leaves which
are incredibly summery really fragrant and lovely soft kind of flowery aroma just drop
it into the glass That should sit very nicely.
If you cant get hold of any borage you could use the basil, just the Basil leaf little
sprig of basil will be fine or any other edible flowers like er pansies theyre pretty good.
Just generally make it look pretty.
Thats all you need.
There you go perfect summer.
Lets have a look.
Ah man cor blimey that is gorgeous its so sharp its super fresh really light, just like
a parfait, a citrus parfait really light like a flowery sort of texture.
There is it perfect summer.
If you would like to have your drink made and created for you keep those requests coming
in #cocktailrequest instagram Twitter whatever, send us some pictures send us a memory, send
us an idea send us some crazy ingredient and we will do our best.
Keep it coming.
Oh er playlist just over in this corner here of everything that we've done so far and don't
forget subscribe to DrinksTube its free.