What’s it all about?
Spicy ginger has a key role to play in a number of great cocktails that gifts both cold refreshment on a sunny afternoon and warm sipping on a cool night. While tonic dances with gin, ginger tangoes with darker spirits of rum, tequila and whisky. Join us to explore 3 tasty cocktails with great names that you can order in most cocktail bars around the world: Dark & Stormy, El Diablo and the undisputed modern classic, the Penicillin.
What will we cover?
- Recipes for 3 drinks.
- Demonstration of the method to make and serve each drink.
- Suggested serving vessels and garnishes.
- Stories of each drink’s origins and history.
- Recommended ingredients when making the drink.
- Some shops that sell specialty ingredients or tools.
- Links for further reading and exploration.
What will you need?
- Relevant ingredients for the drinks you can make (or wish to make) from the list below.
- Ginger beer (the spicier the better, you will find that Bundaberg is too sweet to stand out against the stronger spirits)
- A cocktail shaker or jam jar with lid. Strainer if you have one.
- Any mix of drinking glasses (eg. stemless wine glass, cocktail glass/coupe, rocks glass, collins/tall glass)
- Fresh ice (fresh clean homemade ice or fresh bag ice)
- Drink 1:
- Blackstrap rum *Recommended rums: Gosling’s Black Seal, Coruba, Myers Original
- Spicy ginger beer
- Lime
- Drink 2:
- Tequila (blanco or reposado, “100% agave” on the label)
- Crème de cassis liqueur
- Spicy ginger beer *Fever-Tree, StrangeLove Double Ginger, CAPI Flamin’ ginger beer
- Lime
- Drink 3:
- Blended scotch whisky
- Fresh ginger syrup from raw ginger juice *Ginger syrup = 1 part raw ginger juice to 1 part sugar. You only need a little bit!
- Honey
- Lemon
- Smokey whisky *Use a smokey peaty scotch like those from Islay. You only need a small amount of the smokey scotch so again a miniature bottle is ok.
Who will be teaching?
Simon began adult life disliking alcohol in all forms after repeated unsuccessful attempts to be friends with beer, rum/coke and tequila sunrises. But a chance encounter with a vodka, lime and soda was his gateway drink into a classic daiquiri at the famed cocktail bar Der Raum. Since then Simon become an avid barfly visiting cocktail bars around the world in Europe, America, Asia, NZ and Australia as well as being good friends with gin, rum, whiskey and wheat beers. More recently Simon has been creating at-home cocktail experiences and teaching friends to make tasty drinks all around the world whether it’s a Melbourne balcony, a villa in Tuscany, an apartment in Paris or on a sailing boat in San Francisco Bay.