[AD] This year more than ever we’ve been stocking up our bar cart with alcoholic favourites to enjoy at home. Thankfully there’s a great choice of drinks out there, but we’ve been enjoying trying some new flavours to add to our repertoire. Here are three new discoveries for festive bar carts and alcohol gifting.
Bobby’s Schiedam Dry Gin
Bobby’s Schiedam Dry Gin is an interesting Dutch-Indonesian style gin with an exotic spicy flavour. It’s a good option for this time of year, as amongst the ingredients are warming cloves and cinnamon. Other key ingredients include juniper, cubeb pepper, lemongrass, rose hips, fennel and coriander.
The idea is that the gin is spicy and fragrant, with a burst of citrus and a bite of pepper. You can definitely pick up the notes of lemongrass in it, which is an unusual flavour to find in a gin, but works surprisingly well.
We love the Ikat pattern on the bottle too, which is inspired by traditional Indonesian design. The East meets West theme was aptly chosen as Bobby was the makers grandfather who emigrated from Indonesia to Holland in the 1950s.
Bobby’s Schiedam Dry Gin has an RRP of £37.99 for 70cl and is available from masterofmalt.com
Mermaid Salt Vodka
Mermaid Salt Vodka is made not too far from us on the Isle of Wight and is infused with locally sourced sea salt.
The salt comes from Wight Salt and is harvested from the Island’s southern coast. The company pride themselves on being plastic-free and net zero, so the bottle is glass, it has an all-natural cork and wooden top, plus a biodegradable seal. The clear glass bottle design is lovely, with textured mermaid scales running all over it.
This is an unusual vodka with a subtle taste of salt that enhances flavours. It’s great drunk on its own over ice, with a mixer or used to create some tasty cocktails. If you love all things salted caramel, then the vodka is ideal to use for creating salted caramel drinks, such a vodka-based salted caramel espresso martini.
Mermaid Salt Vodka has an RRP of £40 for 70cl. It’s available from a variety of retailers, including John Lewis, or direct from the Isle of Wight Distillery.
Disco Cocktails
The Disco Cocktails are a great idea created by Ladies & Gents, a ‘five star dive bar’ located in North London. The 70s inspired cocktails come in a nifty pouch with minimal packaging that’s designed to fit through a letterbox – so they’re perfect to send to friends.
The cocktails include:
Disco Pina Colada, made with Dead Man’s Fingers rum and Sprite
Disco Cherry Sour, made with Vestal Vodka and Doctor Pepper
Disco Old Fashioned, made with four-year old American Eagle bourbon and Coca-Cola.
Disco G&T, made with Whitley Neil gin and Schweppes tonic
Disco Pornstar Martini, made with Vestal Vodka and Fanta
Our favourite is definitely the Pina Colada which packs a fruity punch!
The 100ml single serve pouches are £5 each and 500ml sharing pouches (which serve five) are £20 from www.ladiesandgents.co
(Disclosure: PR samples received, but all views and opinions are our own).
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