Sublime Moment

A cocktail that tastes likes chocolate but doesn’t contain any? Bizarre. But that’s the Sublime Moment Cocktail created by Sam Carter, gin professor at Bombay Sapphire. (You’ll remember I did a cocktail masterclass with Sam when I visited the home of Bombay, Lavistoke Mill, you can read about it here.)

I was looking for another Easter cocktail to add to my repertoire and the Sublime Moment, and it wasn’t long before the smell of vanilla filled the house as I made the one of the key ingredients, the vanilla sugar syrup. You’ll need to make this in advance as it takes a few hours for the flavour to fully develop. Once you’d made it though, it will keep for a couple of months in a sealed container if kept in the fridge, so you have as many Sublime Moments as you want!

Ingredients for the vanilla sugar syrup

500g sugar

200ml water

1 vanilla pod

Method

Add 25og of sugar to a pan with 200ml water and one vanilla pod, split with the seeds scraped out. Heat gently until it goes clear. Remove from the hear and add another 250g sugar and stir until clear. Put to one side and allow the vanilla pod to infuse the syrup.