Salt and Lime Please!

After a busy festive period I have finally been able to start experimenting and have a bit of a play around in the bar again. I was rather randomly approached by a customer to create a “green” cocktail for his wives birthday. Refusing to settle for crème de menthe or green food dye I began to think about how I could colour the cocktail. I must admit it was a strange request but I’m never one to turn down a challenge. The solution to this obscure problem was a Green Tea Daiquiri which featured on our Rumour menu for the Japanese themed weekend. This inspired me to start trying different spirits with a home made green tea syrup. I used the zest of one and a half limes and four green tea bags and added them to 300ml of stock syrup. I left this to stew on a hot plate heating it thoroughly for a number of hours before passing it through a fine strainer to remove any bits. The colour differed greatly from that of Monin Green Tea Syrup which I have used in the past. However, I am led to believe that they use artificial colourings to produce such vibrancy in their syrup.

I fell across the idea of a Green Tea Tequila Old Fashioned but never found a specific recipe for it. The idea intrigued me. I thought, like tea, that green tea would be over powered by dark spirits but when mixed with aged tequila the result is rather surprising. Firstly, I tried a combination of 50ml Don Julio Anejo, 10ml Cointreau and 20ml Green Tea Syrup. It is a very unusually fresh flavour and the Green Tea works well with Tequila. The drink was unfortunately lacking that killer punch I was hoping for, something that would truly compliment the green tea and not over shadow the tequila. I decided on Yellow Chartreuse as my substitute for Cointreau and slightly reduced the volume of syrup otherwise it would have been far too sweet. This herbaceous cocktail is well worth a try. It will help erase any negative connotations that you have of tequila This drink along with almost every tequila cocktail will have you questioning what tequila is. Great time and care is attentively put into making an Anejo (Aged) or Resposado (Rested) Tequila like that of a beautifully aged Rum or Whisky. So I beg of you to throw away the salt and lime, and please take the same attention that the creator of a good tequila does when you serve or drink this misunderstood spirit. Seriously what’s the worst that can happen? You might even enjoy it.

Green Tea Tequila Old Fashioned:

50ml Don Julio Anejo
10ml Yellow Chartreuse
12.5ml Green Tea Syrup

Stir and serve over ice with a Lime twist