London Cocktail Week: 6 London-inspired cocktail recipes from the capital's best mixologists

To celebrate London Cocktail Week, we commissioned six maestro mixologists to concoct a new drink inspired by the capital
The Lowdown by Jim Wrigley, bar operations manager at Bourne & Hollingsworth Group
Photography Natasha Pszenicki

This week the planet’s most venerated cocktail craftsmen are on high alert.

It’s London Cocktail Week — and whatever your tipple these maestro mixologists are ready to make it.

Highlights include New Yorkers The Dead Rabbit, who are at the Sun Tavern in Bethnal Green making whisky-sodden stiffeners, and Paris’s Le Syndicat, who are bringing French-only spirits to the Experimental Cocktail Club in Chinatown.

You’ll also find a focus on non- or low-alcoholic tipples, which prove that a night off the sauce doesn’t have to mean a lime and soda. So in honour of London Cocktail Week, six bar stars have come up with a new cocktail especially for the Evening Standard. Do try these at home.

Clockwise from top left, 1. Hickory Spring, 2. The London Standard, 3. Pretty In Pink, 4. Sparkling Margarita, 5. Even Revolutionaries Drink Beer, 6. The Lowdown
Natasha Pszenicki

The London Standard

By Ryan Chetiyawardana, founder of Dandelyan at Mondrian London

Ingredients

  • 30ml Colombo gin
  • 20ml Empirical Spirits Mosaic Hop
  • 20ml tart English apple juice
  • 1 teaspoon damson jam
  • 1 teaspoon raw honey
  • 3 dashes tea tincture (steep a teaspoon of Rare Tea Co’s Mountain Moto in 25ml of gin for an hour, then strain)
  • 1 egg white

Method

Dissolve the jam and honey in the booze then add the other ingredients. Shake without ice, then shake with cubed ice and double strain into a chilled glass. Dust with fennel pollen

Inspiration

The drink celebrates the diversity of London, and its cocktail scene. One of the trends we’re

seeing is spirits that take a bold step in a new direction. This might be using exotic spices — like Colombo gin, which uses Sinhalese spices — or the stuff from Empirical Spirits that defies categorisation and applies a cook’s mentality (created by the ex head of R&D at Noma) to capture unique flavours.

This is married with some British and some exotic flavours that celebrate diversity and a connection to the land, rather than simply paying lip service to sustainability through “locality”. The egg white softens the bigger, tarter green flavours and gives a softness that the fennel pollen can sit on to give a sweet aromatic contrast to the crispness of the drink.

The Lowdown

By Jim Wrigley, bar operations manager at Bourne & Hollingsworth Group

Ingredients

  • 500ml acacia honey
  • 500ml water
  • 5g jasmine pearls
  • 1g citric acid
  • 100ml Fountain of Youth coconut water
  • 20ml fresh lemon juice
  • 10ml jasmine acacia honey water
  • 75ml Real Kombucha Dry Dragon

Method

Add all ingredients except Kombucha to shaker. Shake vigorously, add Real Kombucha to shaker and swirl. Strain over cubed ice in a chilled highball glass. Garnish with a lemon twist spiral around green spiral straw. Flower.

Inspiration

The Lowdown is a booze-free cocktail incorporating some of the delicious but non-alcoholic ingredients we’ve been working with at Bourne & Hollingsworth recently. It’s a long, complex and refreshing drink that anyone can enjoy at any time.

The Sparkling Margarita

By James Drummond, Resident of Paradise Row and winner of London Cocktail Week’s Best Cocktail 2018

Ingredients

  • 50ml Ocho Blanco tequila
  • 60ml kaffir lime-infused coconut water cordial
  • 20ml filtered water
  • Garnish with two kaffir lime leaves dropped into the glass

Method

For the cordial, take 1 litre of good quality coconut water, add 10 torn kaffir lime leaves, add 200ml of agave syrup and 10g of salt, mix well and infuse for 24 hours, add citric and malic acid powder to balance and strain through a coffee filter. Mix the tequila, water and cordial together in a soda siphon, charge with C02 to carbonate. To serve, simply pour the carbonated mix into a rocks glass with a big chunk of ice and garnish with the two kaffir lime leaves.

Inspiration

This drink will suit anyone who is a fan of tequila or margaritas. It is bright, citrusy and clean, with an added sparkle from the carbonation. Londoners are knowledgeable about their drinks and have high expectations with regards to quality and originality — this drink was created to transform a familiar classic cocktail into something different yet recognisable.

Even Revolutionaries Drink Beer

By Steve Georgiou, head bartender at The Wigmore and winner of London Cocktail Week’s Best Cocktail 2017

Ingredients

  • 30ml Campari
  • 20ml Martini Rubino
  • 100ml orange juice
  • 75ml Beavertown Gamma Ray pale ale

Method

All the ingredients are added to a blender and poured into a tankard.

Inspiration

The cocktail was inspired by the growing trend for low-ABV cocktails, as well as my preference for beer cocktails — or hoptails. The cocktail is also based on a Garibaldi, which has become extremely popular over the last few years thanks to Dante in New York. This version adds in a London craft pale ale to the Campari for a capital twist.

Pretty In Pink

By Amber Blood, bar manager at Little Bat

Ingredients

  • 10 ml fino sherry
  • 10 ml Belsazar Rose Vermouth
  • 5 ml honey
  • 2 drops Angostura bitters
  • Champagne

Method

The drink is intentionally very simple to make. All you need to do is churn the ingredients with crushed ice in a tumbler, top up with the champagne, and you’re away!

Inspiration

There has been a growing trend in London for low ABV/low-cal/unrefined sugar cocktails so this cocktail has acknowledges that trend. It is also a twist on the champagne cocktail (which has been around since the 1800s) and is constantly being revived in exciting ways in the capital’s bars.

Hickory Spring by Cara Watson, bar manager at Hawksmoor
Natasha Pszenicki

Hickory Spring

By Cara Watson, bar manager at Hawksmoor

Ingredients

  • 45ml coconut rye
  • 2.5ml Brachetto dessert wine
  • 15ml citrus syrup
  • 20ml lime juice 

Method

For the rye: Add 140ml of desiccated coconut to 700ml of rye and leave overnight (12 hours) and then strain

For the syrup: Add 300ml of boiling water to 600ml of caster sugar, stir till dissolved. Then add the peel of 3 lemons, 1 lime and 1 orange to the mixture and leave overnight (12 hours)

Put all ingredients into a shaker and shake hard. Strain into any glass.

Inspiration

The inspiration came from making a drink that was interesting for a rye drinker and also approachable for someone who isn’t sure they like rye. The citrus syrup is something I have been playing with as a by-product of juicing fresh juice to try and make our bar as sustainable as possible. Sustainability is key in our growing industry and a growing and important trend in London, and using peels or by-product is a fun way to play with flavour.

London Cocktail Week festival passes are on sale now at drinkup.london

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