rhubarb cocktails

Tangy, sharp rhubarb is a staple dessert ingredient (rhubarb crumble is one of my favourites) and seems to be popping up in the gin world too with at least three distilleries, Warner Edwards, Edinburgh Distillery and Slingsby all producing a gin flavoured with rhubarb.

I’ve yet to try those, but I have been wondering whether to make my own infusion, rather like the Raspberry gin I made a while back, one of my readers swears by it!

With my limited amount of rhubarb and not enough patience to do an infusion right now, I decided to have a play with rhubarb cocktails instead, using rhubarb syrup. Making this syrup is quick and easy and a good standby to have on those off-booze days (yes, we all need those occasionally).

rhubarb

Rhubarb Syrup

Ingredients

I cup of sugar

1 cup of water

1 cup of chopped rhubarb

Bring ingredients to the boil, then simmer for 25 minutes. Once the syrup has cooled, strain into a clean, air tight bottle and you are ready to go!

Rhubarb Gin Fizz

Ingredients for a Rhubarb Gin Fizz

60ml gin

30ml rhubarb syrup

15ml freshly squeezed lemon juice

120ml soda

Method

Shake the gin, lemon juice and rhubarb syrup together in an ice-filled cocktail shaker until cold. Strain into a collins glass, add more ice and top up with the soda water. Garnish with a sprig of rosemary.

Rhubarb Gimlet

Ingredients for a Rhubarb Gimlet

60ml gin

60ml rhubarb syrup

10ml freshly squeezed lime juice

Method

Shake the gin, rhubarb syrup and lime juice together in an ice-filled cocktail shaker until cold. Strain into a coupe and garnish with a twist of lime.

Rhubarb Blush Martini (pictured left in the image below)

This is a combination of two different recipes (Pok Pok’s Rhubarb Blush and this one) that I liked, but wanted to tweak, mainly with the swapping of Aperol for Campari (the bitter the better in my book!).