Creating Cocktails – The Eton Mess
Cocktails Food & Drink

Creating Cocktails – The Eton Mess

I’ve been all about the cocktails this Summer!

Organising Norwich Cocktail Week has meant that they’ve been on my mind a lot and there have been lots of meetings trying out cocktails at bars that are involved.

It’s a hard life, right?

A few weeks ago I got an email from Waitrose asking me to create a Summer Cocktail of my own for their Garden Party Hub. The brief was to create a cocktail that captured “quintessential British flavours and was presented with whimsical flair!”.

I was quite excited, as I am by anything involving cocktails, or indeed drinks of any kind. I spent quite some time in the spirits aisle of Waitrose clutching a handful of vouchers, and then a happy afternoon making things up and pretending like I was an amazing mixologist.

In the end I have created:

The Eton Mess Cocktail

A delicious blend of Strawberries and Cream with Rhubarb liqueur. It doesn’t get more British than that! Served, of course, in vintage crystal coupé glasses.

Eton Mess Cocktail

Ingredients:

4 or 5 strawberries

splash Monin sugar syrup

50ml Chase Rhubarb liqueur

50ml Single Cream

Muddle the strawberries in a glass with a splash of sugar syrup and add them to the bottom of a coupé glass.

Add plenty of ice to a cocktail shaker and shake the cream and Rhubarb liqueur together until shaker is cold and pour into the coupé glass.

Garnish with a strawberry!

Summer Eton Mess Cocktail

 

A few notes if you fancy giving this a go yourself! I did try shaking the whole lot together, but the strawberries made it very difficult to pour as they clogged the cocktail shaker, if you have a proper Boston shaker you might be able to do this and strain it though a sieve for a finer drink that comes out a delicious pale pink, like the drink in the background of the picture.

Lastly, for a real treat, I actually tried making this with a coconut cream liqueur called Sisserou I had in the house and it was delicious, so for an extra kick, and cream liqueur could add an extra something to this cocktail.

There were some slightly less successful cocktail experiments before I came up with this one, though trying them all out couldn’t exactly be called dull!

The Rhubarb and custard shooter, with Advocaat and Rhubarb Liqueur was, er, interesting, and mixing rhubarb liqueur with sparking wine was less of a success.

rhubarb and custard

If you get your hands on some Five Valleys Pomegranate & Rose Cordial though then I highly recommend giving this nice simple cocktail, which I am rather grandly calling the Royale Rose. It’s simply a shot of cordial topped up with sparkling wine or Champagne.

Royale Rose

I took all these photos in my front garden, so my neighbours now think I’m the kind of crazy person who spends her Sunday evenings on her hands and knees taking photos of her drinks, ah, the perils of being a blogger.

All the ingredients, apart from the Sisserou were bought from Waitrose with vouchers provided by them, cocktail ideas and cocktail drinking are all my own!

If you fancy a bit more inspiration then pop over and visit their British Garden Party hub for recipes and cocktails. I’m fancying Heston’s Gin with Grapefruit and Ginger Beer.

41 Comments

  • jetlbomb August 15, 2014

    I love the idea of you spending evenings creating cocktails and then making the neighbours wonder about your sanity.

    If I leave outfit posts too late in the day I have to do them in the front garden, which is on a very busy road/roundabout. I’ve had whole bus loads of people just staring at me as I pose waiting for a photo to take on timer!

    • Gemma August 15, 2014

      Haha! Love that. I’ve not yet tried to use my tripod and a timer outdoors, but I’ve considered it a few times!

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