I wasn’t familiar with yuzu until I began exploring Japanese Gins. A type of citrus, yuzu is common in Japanese cooking and is one of the key botanicals in Japanese gin. The flavour is part lime, part grapefruit and you know how much I love grapefruit and gin together!

The Collins is a classic cocktail from the  late 1800s having been first recorded in Jerry Thomas’ Bartender’s Guide in 1874. A Tom Collins is usually made with gin and lemon juice , but I thought a yuzu collins made with Ki No Bi Japanese gin would work well. And I was right!

Ingredients for a Yuzu Collins

45ml gin (I used Ki No Bi)
30ml yuzu juice (found in Asian supermarkets)
15ml sugar syrup
60ml Soda

How to make a Yuzu Collins

Shake the gin, yuzu juice and sugar syrup together in an ice-filled shaker. Add ice to a high ball glass, strain contents of shaker into the glass and top up with soda water. Enjoy!

I’ve never been one for Valentine’s Day, so I’m celebrating my one true love, gin, with four Valentine tipples to woo your (gin) lover.

Rosie Lee (main picture)

Infusing gin is a not-so-secret hobby of mine (check out my recipes for Earl Grey tea infused gin or Rhubarb). This stunning cocktail inspired from a recipe in the PDT cocktail book uses rose tea infused gin.

The Usual Suspects

I love martinis, but not everyone does. This version from Hendrick’s has the addition of Lillet Blanc, making it much more approachable.

Chocolate Negroni

Who doesn’t love receiving chocolate on Valentine’s Day? Choose from either a Chocolate Negroni or a 20th Century cocktail for your sweetheart.

What’s your favourite Valentine’s Day cocktail?

My obsession with Negroni continues and this Chocolate version by industry legend, Naren Young (owner of Dante in New York) is particularly good – rich without being overly sweet.

Ingredients for the Chocolate Negroni

30ml gin (I used Beefeater)
¾ oz Campari
¾ oz sweet vermouth (I used Antica Formula)
2 dashes chocolate bitters (optional – I used orange bitters)
¼ oz white crème de cacao
Orange twist and/or a wedge of chocolate orange (for garnish)

Method

Stir down the ingredients over ice. Strain into a rocks glass and garnish as preferred.

Traditionally, egg nog is served warm, and sipped while you toast your toes in front of a roaring log fire, which would be fine, if I wasn’t living in Australia where you can cook your eggs on the pavement during December

Still, Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without egg nog, and although rum, brandy or bourbon are the usual spirits. I’m making mine with…SURPRISE! gin!

The first Egg Nog recipe can be served warm or cold, in fact mine is chilling down in the fridge as we speak. The second recipe is almost a flip rather than an egg nog, but is a good option if you are pressed for time.

If you are concerned about raw eggs in cocktails, Bartender magazine has an interesting explainer article here. Also, for my vegan friends, this looks like a good option.

Traditional egg nog (adapted from this recipe)

Ingredients

170ml Four Pillars Christmas Gin
500ml Milk
250mL Cream
3 Eggs, separated
1/2 Cup of sugar
Cinnamon
Nutmeg

Method

1. Whisk the egg yolks with sugar in a mixing bowl
2. Gently heat milk and cinnamon in a saucepan over a low heat for 5 minutes
3. Add the egg yolk mixture to the saucepan, slowly folding it in
4. Stir constantly and don’t allow to boil
5. Slowly add the gin, cream and nutmeg, stirring continuously.

Serve hot garnished with a cinnamon quill, or refrigerate overnight and serve cold over ice topped with a sprinkle of nutmeg or brown sugar.

Quick egg nog

Ingredients

30ml Citadelle No Mistake Old Tom gin
15ml Cognac
20ml simple syrup
90ml Almond milk
30ml Heavy cream
1 Egg

Method

Add all the ingredients to a cocktail shaker without ice and shake vigorously. Add ice and continue to shake until chilled. Strain into a rocks glass and garnish with star anise.

Ryan Chetiyawardana is renowned for his stylish bars (Dandelyan, White Lyan (now closed), Super Lyan and his new restaurant/bar Cub) and incredible cocktails, but he’s also got a lovely way of putting food and drink together.

His new book, Good Together is dedicated to creating the perfect gathering at home, surrounded by friends, delicious food and tasty drinks. Many of the drinks (including this one) can be pre-batched in advance giving you more time with your guests.

With the summer here and Christmas around the corner, the Pearly Negroni is the perfect cooler and would make an excellent welcome drink for party guests.

Best of all as the base is pre-batched, you’ll also have white negroni ready to go at a minutes notice!

Ingredients (makes 1 bottle) for Pearly Negroni

300ml London Dry Gin (I used Jensen’s London Dry)

1 unwaxed, organic lemon

150ml Lillet Blanc

200ml Suze (or other gentian liqueur)

Chilled grapefruit soda

mandarin or other aromatic citrus to garnish

How to make Pearly Negroni

Infuse the gin with the zest of lemon for 2 hours, then strain

Add Lillet Blanc and Suze, then bottle

To serve, use small glasses, add ice and mandarin slice. Add 40ml of the negroni base to each glass and top with grapefruit soda. Garnish with more citrus.

Enjoy!

Gin is a fantastic spirit for making infusions (try my Earl Grey Tea, Raspberry or rhubarb gin recipes) and this Grapefruit and Rosemary Gin with Ginger Ale from Ryan Chetiyawardana’s book Good Things to Drink is another to add to your repertoire.

Grapefruit and rosemary often pop up as gin botanicals (Melbourne Gin company and Gin Mare are examples) as well as making fantastic garnishes in a G&T. Together they make a fantastic infusion and on a cold winter day in Melbourne I felt positively mediterranean sipping on this!

The best thing about this particular infusion is that it doesn’t take too long for the flavours to be extracted, in fact, Ryan suggests no more than a day. As someone lacking in patience, I was very happy with the result after a couple of hours!

Ingredients for the Grapefruit and Rosemary gin

3 grapefruits

100g sugar

2 sprigs of rosemary

1 bottle of London Dry gin

Method

Peel the grapefruits. Add peel to a clean, airtight glass container with the rosemary, sugar, and gin. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. Leave to infuse for a few hours (no more than a day), then strain into a bottle and keep refrigerated.

Serving Grapefruit and Rosemary Gin with Ginger Ale

Add 50ml to a Collins (highball) glass and add ice. Top up with chilled ginger ale (I used Fentimans ginger beer as I had some to hand) and a grapefruit slice.

Enjoy!

If you haven’t yet bought a copy of Sasha Petraske’s book Regarding Cocktails, then do it now. It’s full of exquisite cocktails created by Sasha and the many renowned bartenders who worked and learned with him at Milk and Honey.

Too Soon was created by Sam Ross (Attaboy, New York and creator of the world-famous Penicillin) and features the underrated Cynar, an aperativo that I’ve been learning to love. This bitter-sweet Italian liqueur is made with 13 herbs and botanicals, with artichoke being the predominant flavour. Don’t that put you off though! This cocktail is deliciously fresh with sweetness of the orange balanced nicely with the Cynar.

Ingredients for a Too Soon

30ml gin

30ml Cynar

22 ml freshly squeezed lemon juice

15ml simple syrup

2 thin slices of orange

Method

Shake all the ingredients in an ice-filled shaker until cold. Strain into a chilled coupe.

Enjoy!