Following on from our last video which is all about the essentials to building your home bar,
I thought I'd better show you three easy to make,
but very different cocktails you can now whip up with your new setup.
We've got the Jungle Bird,
the Toreador
and the Bee's Knees.
The beauty of these last two is that
with so few ingredients they're the kind of drinks you can still manage to whip up
even when your bar stocks have been plundered or when you being a lockdown for a while.
Invented in Kuala Lumpur in the 1970s, I love the Jungle Bird for proving that
Campari is not only for stir down and boozy drinks. As Tiki as it gets, it's bright,
and fruity and just joyful. The garnish is lots of fun but obviously not necessary if you
don't have all the ingredients. If you do have any kind of leftover fruit,
like oranges or anything kicking around in your fridge then just a big wedge of
that for a pop of color will work as well. So first you want to cut a disc off
your pineapple then we're just gonna cut a nice triangular wedge out of here,
Then you want to grab a few pineapple fronds, now I always like to give these a wash
because they do have kind of a yeast on them that you don't want really getting
in your face or your drink. You want to arrange them with the smallest frond on top
and then give it a little bit of a cut-down.
Then just grab yourself out a cherry.
Skewer through the cherry, through the fronds and into your pineapple wedge.
Then just fan the fronds out and voila you have a little jungle bird.
I reckon this is probably David Attenborough's favorite cocktail.
So we're gonna go 45 mils of dark rum, Diplomatico Mantuano is a great
medium bodied rum which works well in almost all dark rum cocktails.
45 mils of pineapple juice.
15 mils of Campari
15 mils of fresh lime juice,
and 10 mils of cane sugar syrup, technically,
but really any sugar syrup is fine.
Now you're gonna fill your shaker tin full with ice.
Combined the tins and shake hard until the tins become frosted.
Now for this one I just like to actually shake and dump into my lovely novelty
pineapple glass here. That basically means that you don't bother straining at all,
you just pour the whole thing in, so a lot less mess and equipment for doing it at home.
Now this one as you can see ends up looking really pretty
because the Campari gives it a lovely little kind of peachy pink tone
and the pineapple juice froths up nicely so that it looks very inviting.
Just pop your straw in there, make sure your jungle bird is looking extra fancy.
And there we have it, The Jungle Bird.
So now you know.
The Toreador actually predates
the more widely known Margarita. It first appeared in the Cafe Royale Cocktail Book
in 1937 when tequila was relatively unheard of outside of Mexico.
So this drink is best served naked, you don't need a garnish for it.
The salt rim that goes with the margarita doesn't really work but we do have the bitters in there
which is basically another way of seasoning the cocktail slightly.
So no garnish to get prepared first of all, so we can just dive right in.
We do need to squeeze some fresh lime juice.
So we're gonna go for 40 mils of
a good quality of tequila.
Arette is a little bit more expensive,
I really think it's worth it because it's really quite fruity and herbaceous,
which works really well in this cocktail.
Marionette Apricot Brandy is made with local apricots and
has like a really lush spiced fruit flavor that I love.
Otherwise Massanez or Cartron both have really good quality ones.
20 mils of your fresh lime juice.
Now I'm using a good dash of Mr. Bitters Fig and Cinnamon bitters
if you can't get your hands on this then a dash of Angostura will just help to lengthen it out as well.
It's also not the kind of cocktail that's going to be completely ruined
if you just all pop bitters in there. It just adds a nice other dimension.
We love different dimensions.
And then really just a little dash,
about 5 mils of some sugar syrup. As I said it might not be necessary if you're using a
sweeter apricot brandy or if you just have quite a dry palate anyway.
Fill your shaker tin up with as much ice as you can possibly fit in there.
Pop your tins together and shake as hard as you can
Hmm, it's delicious.
Now grab yourself a nice coupe glass, just do a double strain,
so using the Hawthorn strainer to hold the ice back, and through your fine strainer.
The Toreador.
So now you know.
The Bee's Knees. This is the ultimate store cupboard cocktail,
with just three easy to find ingredients.
It's thought to have originated about prohibition times although there are a few theories
running around. It does make sense though that the original ratio which was equal parts
was probably to cover up inadequate gin, but now that gin doesn't need
to be covered up I prefer to make it as a variation on a normal sour.
So making the gin the hero and then the honey adding some more warmth and complexity.
So as always we're gonna get our lemon twist prepped first.
Just cut away from yourself on the lemon and then what I do is I go back
and cut off any of the white pith as much as you can. Give it a trim up,
so it's nice and tidy. You obviously don't have to do this.
We're gonna add 50 mils of Plymouth.
Plymouth is really similar to your classic London Dry with lots of
juniper and citrus, but also just a little bit softer.
You're gonna go 20 mils of honey syrup. Try to use decent quality honey and you can even
experiment with different types as they'll give different flavors.
Squeeze some lemon.
You're gonna have 20 mils of your freshly squeezed lemon juice,
fill your shaker tin with as much ice as you can possibly fit in there.
Pop the tins together. Make sure there's a nice flat line on this side and then shake
as hard as you can.
Delicious.
Now I know this is not technically a coupe glass but I've been quite enjoying
drinking out of these little brandy balloons at home.
Give it a double strain into your glass,
Squeeze the lemon twist over so that you get all the nice citrus oils,
you can give it a little rub around the rim if you like as well.
Give it a little curl, and pop the twist in your drink.
The Bee's Knees.
So now you know.