What’s it all about?
Learn how to make easy, achievable but delicious classic cocktails at home. This class features a selection of curated drinks using a quality gin of your choice. It will also highlight either a homemade jam or your choice of a high quality commercial jam. You’ll have the opportunity to ask advice from a cocktail aficionado on tips for equipping your home with the necessary tools and knowledge to make some great cocktails.
What will we cover?
- Recipes for 3 drinks
- Stories of each drink’s origins and history
- Demonstration of the method to make and serve each drink
- Suggested serving vessels and garnishes
- Recommended ingredients when making the drink
- Some shops that sell specialty ingredients or tools
- Links for further reading and exploration
What will you need?
- Drink 1: Dry gin + lemons + sugar + Cointreau* + orange marmalade*
- Drink 2: Dry gin + lemons + sugar + berry jam* + (optional: Fee Brothers plum bitters)
- Drink 3: Dry gin + lemons + sugar + raspberry jam*
- You can use another triple sec / curaçao in place of Cointreau (40% ABV) but it may end up tasting different. Cointreau is also available as 50ml miniatures.
- Ideally aim for a bitter orange marmalade. Fine cut is preferred rather than large strips in the marmalade.
- Bonne Maman Fruits of the Forest is the recommended berry jam. Alternatively you can aim to find a jam (or mix your own) that is high in blackberry and raspberry.
- Use a high fruit content raspberry jam (aim for 50% fruit) which provides a good balance of fruit flavour to acidity and sugar.
- Something to shake with: eg. 3 piece shaker, Boston style glass + shaker tin, tightly sealed jar or wide-mouthed drink bottle.
- Appropriate strainers for your shaker: hawthorne strainer, fine strainer.
- Something to measure with: eg. A cocktail jigger, shot glass measure, cough medicine measure.
- A variety of glasses: eg. a collins glass, a cocktail coupe or similar, a rocks glass.
- Knife and chopping board.
- Something to juice citrus with or your hands.
- Something to stir with: bar spoon or chopstick.
- A tray or tea towel to catch spills.
Who will be teaching?
Simon began adult life disliking alcohol in all forms after repeated unsuccessful attempts to be friends with beer, rum/coke and tequila sunrises. But a chance encounter with a vodka, lime and soda was his gateway drink into a classic daiquiri at the famed cocktail bar Der Raum. Since then Simon become an avid barfly visiting cocktail bars around the world in Europe, America, Asia, NZ and Australia as well as being good friends with gin, rum, whiskey and wheat beers. More recently Simon has been creating at-home cocktail experiences and teaching friends to make tasty drinks all around the world whether it’s a Melbourne balcony, a villa in Tuscany, an apartment in Paris or on a sailing boat in San Francisco Bay.