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If you’re looking for some inspiration for some classic cocktails or my spin on classic gin and whisky cocktails then these few cocktails might be right up your street.

I’m mostly found drinking gin when out in bars in the evening but I’m a sucker for a Japanese whisky, especially the Nikka Whisky range. Luckily for me they’ve recently branched out into the juniper spirit world too.

I’m by no means a professional mixologist but I do like to experiment not only in the kitchen but with my ever growing collection of spirits at home.

The Last Word Cocktail

Classic Last Word Cocktail

  • 50ml gin
  • 25ml Green Chartreuse
  • 25ml Maraschino Liquer
  • 25ml fresh lime juice

Instructions

Add all the ingredients to a mixing glass with ice. Stir with a bar spoon for around 15-20 seconds to both dilute and cool the mix. Strain into a chilled coupe glass and serve.

Last Samurai Cocktail

Last Samurai cocktail

  • 50ml Nikka Coffey Gin
  • 25ml Green Chartruese
  • 25ml Maraschino Liquer
  • 12ml lime juice
  • 12ml yuzu juice

Instructions

This is a play on the Last word cocktail above but with a Japanese twist using Nikka Coffey Gin with it’s Japanese inspired botanicals and subbing half the lime juice with Yuzu, a Japanese citrus fruit.

Add all the ingredients to a mixing glass with ice. Stir with a bar spoon for around 15-20 seconds to both dilute and cool the mix. Strain into a chilled coupe glass and serve.

Aviation Cocktail

  • 50ml gin
  • 12ml Crème de Violette
  • 12ml Maraschino Liquer
  • 25ml fresh lemon juice
  • 1 Luxardo maraschino cherry to garnish

Instructions

Add all the ingredients to a mixing glass with ice. Stir with a bar spoon for around 15-20 seconds to both dilute and cool the mix.

Add a Luxardo maraschino cherry and a little of the syrup into a chilled couple glass. Strain the cooled mixture into the couple glass and serve.

Chocolate, Hazelnut and Tonka Bean Old Fashioned Cocktail

Nikka whisky cocao tonka bean hazlenut old fashioned cocktail

 

  • 50ml Cocao butter fat washed Nikka From The Barrel Whisky
  • 10ml Tonka Bean and Hazlenut Syrup
  • 3 dashes umeboshi

Instructions

Add the Nkka, Tonka Bean Syrup and umeboshi to a mixing glass with ice. Stir with a bar spoon for around 15-20 seconds to both dilute and cool the mix.

Strain into a cut glass old fashioned or rocks glass with a block of ice and serve.

How to make the components of the cocktail

  1. To make the Cacao butter fat washed Nikka you will need to melt cacao butter in a bowl over hot water and pour the liquid butter into a container with the whisky. Depending on how much you want to make depends on how much cacao butter to use.
  2. I made 50ml of whisky to test and used a chunk about the size of my thumb. Make sure the container is to seal as you want to shake it to mix the fat in with the whisky.
  3. I left out to make sure it cooled for a few hours, then put it in the fridge overnight. I then placed the whisky in the freezer for an hour or two so the fat hardens. It has probably solidified already but we want to make sure it is solid so we can scoop it out easily.
  4. When you’re ready to roll, take the container out of the freezer and use a spoon to scoop out the cocao butter. Mine resembled a mini poppadum and was in two large pieces so was easy to fish out. Then take a fine sieve and pour the whisky into whatever container you want to store it in so it could be the empty whisky bottle but using the sieve to catch any small remnants of the cocao butter.
  5. The longer you leave the butter in the whisky the more pronounced the flavour. You don’t want to overpower the drink so play around with the timings. Mine was about 24 hours but you could do it less for a more subtle taste or depending how much cacao butter you use.
  6. To make the tonka bean and hazelnut syrup you want to smash up a few hazlenuts and dry roast in a pan to toast them and give them a more smoky flavour. Depending on how much you want to make up the measurements but I went for a test batch and used about 5 or 6 nuts with equal amounts of water and sugar. For this small batch I used 75ml of water and 75ml of sugar.
  7. Once the hazlenuts have toasted but make sure they don’t burn, add the sugar and water and turn it up to a boil. Cook for another minute once it’s boiling and take off the heat. I then added 1 tonka bean, which I snapped into 4 pieces.
  8. Bare in mind that in high does tonka beans, much like nutmeg can become toxic so don’t overdo it but some sources have said it could take around 20+ tonka beans for a person to cause damage. It’s for this reason tonka beans are banned in the US but this is from many years before too much research had been done to say they are toxic but in high quantities.
  9. Leave the mixture to cool for a few hours and to develop. Once you are happy with the concentration of flavours, decant the mixture into a clean container or bottle using a fine mesh sieve again to remove any residue that could cause it to spoil.