Cocktail No 73 - Bleeding Heart Birkdale Gin Martini

Thinking ahead to Halloween and looking for ghoulish cocktails: enter the Bleeding Heart Birkdale Gin Martin - a classic dry martini, garnished with a pickled baby beet that "bleeds" from the wound caused by piercing it through with a cocktail spear.

The bleed develops with time and the drink gets increasingly blood red, assuming you take that long to drink it.

Birkdale Gin is an excellent base for a martini. Its clean and fresh and paired with the crispness and vitalising herbal brilliance of Noilly Prat, makes a perfect marriage. The pickled beet isn't noticeable until you get to the bottom of the glass where it comes through as an aftertaste. You can taste the beet, but not much of the vinigar used to pickle it, which is surprising. In the very last sip, the sweetness of the beet really came through, quite delightfully.

Here in the UK, Waitrose is the only place where I have found pickled baby beets on sale.

All good fun in the name of gore & horror.

Recipe

3 parts Birkdale Gin
1 part Dry Vermouth (preferably Noilly Prat).

Shake on ice until very cold, add to martini glass. Garnish with pickled baby beet, pierced through with a cocktail spear.