Hi welcome to Drinks Tube, my name is Gabe Cook and I am the Ciderologist.
I've traveled the world making cider so you could say I know my apples.
Today I'm going to show you how to make a fantastic beer and cider cocktail.
The snakebite.
Woah come back, come back.
I know the Snakebite has certain connotations of being a student drink or cheap drinks but I'm going
to show you how to make the ultimate snakebite.
With a bit of care and attention this really can be a fantastic drink.
Packed full of flavour and really really refreshing.
Now normally this drink is made equal parts lager and mainstream style cider, cider is known as hard cider
in the US by the way.
But today I'm going to be utilising a great beer and a truly fantastic cider.
Now as this is the ultimate snakebite we are also going to be adding a blackcurrent cordial.
But not any old cordial, we are going to make something homemade right here on the top with fantastic
fresh ingredients.
Here we have these wonderful fresh blackcurrents
they've already been washed to get rid of all the impurities.
And we're going to get in the pot and start cooking it.
So we're going to make enough syrup for 25 servings.
So in to our pan first of all goes 250g of washed blackcurrents.
Secondly 125ml of water.
and thirdly 125ml of honey.
Now the honey is really important as it's a subsitute for sugar and it has its own unique and distinctive flavour.
And will have a rich, ready consistency.
Get a spoon, stir it altogether in the pot, this is on a medium heat.
Put the lid back on, 5 minutes and that's enough to let the blackcurrants break up a bit.
After 5 minutes these blackcurrants are really starting to simmer down now a little bit.
Now we can give them a little bit of a bash to help break them down a bit more.
But they're nearly good to go.
If you want to add a little extra tang, then you could always use half a lemon.
Juice can go in, just add a little extra bite
to that rich lovely blackcurrant.
So turn the heat down low and simmer for a further 10 minutes,
to reduce the cordial and combine everything together.
After 10 minutes of simmering we turn the heat off, allow the mixture to cool,
and we should end up with a consistency some what like this.
What we're going to do now is place it through a fine mesh,
to get rid of all those bits, push it through a little bit.
There's our fantastic, beautiful blackcurrent cordial.
And we're just left with a little bit of the pulpy stuff, we're going to put that to one side.
That will be fantastic for a topping for an ice cream or in a smoothie.
But this is what we are after, the wonderful cordial.
This is now going to go in to a sterilised jar, so that it can be kept for a few weeks.
Now we've got all our bit together it's time to do some pouring.
We can move that to one side, and get our glass.
First of all we are going to put in half a glass worth of a classic English style cider.
Now we've chosen this cider because of its rich, complex flavours, kind of off-dry
subtle, smooth, it will be a perfect compliment to that beer.
If you like cider and want to know more, all you've got to do is click here and check out my ultimate guide to cider.
Now we will move on to the beer,
normally you'd use a lager but we want to step things up a little bit and use a session style IPA.
Pour in roughly the same amount, she's good to go.
This beer will provide some lovely hoppy-ness and little bit of bitterness to compliment the cider.
So now we can add about 10ml or so of our fantastic homemade cordial.
So we're going to give this a bit of a stir, you wouldn't normally stir the cordial in but this is the fantastic
homemade stuff you want to make sure you've got a real good mix and it's fully in there.
You can definitely tell it's homemade by the colour and its consistency.
It looks amazing, just looks fantastic.
But most importantly we are going to need to give it a taste, so here goes.
Wow that's absolutely amazing, it's packed full of flavours.
The cider is giving a rich, strong, bitter sweet flavour, spiciness and appleyness.
And then the hops from the wonderful session IPA cuts through the top, real zingy light and fresh
and then coating everything is our amazing homemade syrup with the blackcurrents,
adds a real sweetness, freshness and just binds everything together.
This is absolutely fantastic
a truly ultimate snakebite.
I will say cheers, oh and don't forget if you want to learn more, subscribe to Drinks Tube
and see all the other fantastic videos but for now cheers!