Cocktails with Wild Food

Of course, flavouring alcohols with wild foods, herbs and fruit (typically, gin, vodka and brandy) is a well known process, with Sloe Gin being the best know example. Other examples are plum brandies, Whitethorn Schnapps and Beech Leaf Noyau, amongst many others.


These flavoured alcohols make an excellent base for Martini-style cocktails and a good example is this one for a Sloetini:

Sloetini

Ingredients:
75ml Sloe Gin
15ml dry vermouth
1/2 tsp simple syrup
ice cubes

Garnish:
Oriange Twist

Add cracked ice cubes to a cocktail shaker then pour in the Sloe Gin, dry vermouth and simple syrup then shake until chilled before straining into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with an orange twist and serve immediately.


You can also use wild foods directly to make purées that can be used to flavour cocktails. An interesting example of this is the Nettletini, made with nettle purée:

Nettletini

Ingredients:
60ml Gin
45ml nettle purée
15ml sweet vermouth
1/2 tsp simple syrup
1 tsp lime juice
ice cubes

Garnish:
Lime Twist

Add cracked ice cubes to a cocktail shaker then pour in the Gin, nettle purée, sweet vermouth, simple syrup and lime juice then shake until chilled before straining into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with a lime twist and serve immediately.


For more information on making flavoured alcohols see the Celtnet Guide to Wild Foods. The same site also provides a list of hundreds of cocktails both alcoholic and non-alcoholic on its cocktails and long drinks recipes page.

For all the wild food recipes on this blog, see the wild food recipes page.