Matt Preston's 7 favourite cocktail recipes for summer - Food Files

Dec 28, 2022

Summer is here, and Matt Preston can hear the ice hitting his cocktail glass. Here, he shares his favourite tipples for the season.

For some, summer is the sound of leather on willow, but for me it’s more likely to be the clinking of ice in a glass. Now I know the season doesn’t officially start until December, but with the T20 World Cup cricket underway and the start of the party season imminent, it feels to me like summer has already arrived.

Every year throws up a new top tipple, whether it’s the obsession with frosé that followed on from the Aperol spritz, or the gin with cucumber and tonic replaced by the gin with elderflower and soda. Crafty Scottish (and Canadian and Japanese) distillers have even been trying to put a flouncy summer frock on whisky by marketing it as a highball mixed with dry ginger or soda.

With this being the first summer in years without the spectre of a pandemic
– and hopefully a whole lot less rain – I think we deserve a new suite of summer drinking options. So, let’s perch at the end of the bar and peruse my new summer cocktail list.

THE BLUE DRINK

Retro is all the rage so this could be the summer of the blue drink, whether that’s a sky-blue gin martini stirred over rocks or a ’70s classic like the blue lagoon. I’m bringing this up to date by using two parts soda and two parts lemonade rather than just the lemonade with that shot of vodka and blue curaçao. Add a squeeze of fresh lemon juice for more pep. I’m calling this one the E133 because this orange-y flavoured liqueur owes its brilliant blue shade to a triarylmethane dye that often goes by that number. Dust the rim with a little citric acid and you can call it an acid blue 9 – another scientific name for the colour.

THE PALOMA

A pretty name for a very pretty cocktail that’s little more that two parts grapefruit juice – I use pink for the colour or add a dash of bitters to cheat it – and one part golden tequila. Add a dash of lemon juice and a spot of sugar syrup to balance things out, then serve in chilled martini glasses. If you add gin instead of tequila, you’ll turn it into a greyhound.

Paloma

THE PLUM SHRUB

The shrub is the name of one of the earliest cocktails. Actually, if anything, the shrub was a cocktail before the cocktail had even been invented. The beauty of the shrub is that this combination of an acid (such as vinegar) and cooked soft fruit can be pre-made in a batch to sit in the fridge until needed. Then just add two parts shrub liquid to one part of a suitable alcohol, like vodka or brandy (the latter is way more traditional as vodka only came on the scene outside of Slavic countries in the 1940s, and shrubs were around hundreds of years earlier). Spritz with a little soda. To make my cheat’s plum shrub, I slice a kilo of ripe plums and cook them down with a cup of sugar and 1⁄4 cup of cider or red-wine vinegar until the fruit has totally broken down. Then I pass it through a fine sieve, with the help of the back of a ladle, and reserve the resulting purée. Taste and add a little extra vinegar so you can detect the sourness under the fruity mellowness. I use my shrub liquid within the week.

THE SOUTHERN COMFORT-ABLE SHRUB

If you want to make a peach or cherry shrub base, use lemon juice instead of vinegar and add a cinnamon stick and a couple of strips of lemon peel (one studded with five cloves) to the pot for cooking. Remove all the pits before cooking. Treat like the plum shrub, adjusting the flavour with more lemon juice. Mix with bourbon for a southern comfort-able shrub.

THE SPRITZ OF 2022

I’m still not sure what spritz will be the hit of this summer but there are 37 suggestions here. My money is on the lovely sounding basil and lemon spritz, or the more Middle Eastern-accented pomegranate and rose. You can expect the Aperol spritz to still reign supreme.

GOLCONDA SUNSET

Apricots are in season, so cook them down with sugar, lemon juice and crushed cardamom pods – one pod for every 150g of fruit and 50g of sugar. Once puréed and sieved, this will leave you with a brilliantly coloured cocktail base that mixes beautifully with the caramel warmth of dark rum and lime juice. Add a good dash of bitters on top – like the reddening sky at sunset over the ancient Indian fort that inspired this drink.

THE NEW FROZEN ONE

As things get hotter towards Christmas, I’ll be turning towards the blender and boozy slushies (that can also be made alcohol-free). I currently have two options to replace the predictable daiquiri.

The winner could be a cheat’s pina colada with 500g of frozen pineapple pieces blended with pineapple juice, a good pinch of salt and loads of ice. Top with a shot of white rum and a swirl of coconut cream.

Or perhaps the frontrunner will be a smoky mescal margarita. Good mescal is generally more expensive than tequila but I’ll save money by using a good bottle of margarita mix rather than all those pricey limes. I’ll still add a little fresh lime juice to help heighten the zing. Blend four parts mix, two parts mescal, one part triple sec and loads of ice. And don’t forget to plan ahead and chill your glasses.