Cocktail No 36 Red Tonic

Wow this was a complete surprise. A sweet-sour experience with that wonderful bitterness from the tonic. Genadine is incredibly sweet and it needs the lemon juice to balance it and cut through. With tonic alone it would be too cloying, certainly for my palate.

Its basically a Vodka and Tonic sweetened with Grenadine and cut with lemon juice.

Recipe

Put 1 measure of Vodka with one measure of Grenadine and 2 teaspoons of lemon juice into a tumbler. Stir well and top-up with tonic water. Add ice to taste and garnish with a lemon slice.

Cocktail No 15 Fireman's Sour

A sweet and sour delight for rum lovers. Other recipes call for more lemon, but I think this one is better balanced and not too sharp but with a definite sting. Its getting the weekend of to a wonderful start.

The rum is the predominant flavour, very caramelly and rich, but cut by the lemonjuice. The grenadine mainly adds colour, but the combination with the soda water really distinguishes it from a daquiri, which has similar proportions.

Recipe

Add 3 measures of Bacardi rum to a cocktail shaker with 1/2 measure of lemon juice and one teaspoon of grenadine. Shake with ice and strain into a tumbler. Decorate with 3 cocktail cherries and 6 small triangles of lemon.

Top Up with a little soda water.

Cocktail No 11 French Cocktail

OK, for a starter you have to really like Pernod for this one. It helps if you like Gin as well. Luckily for me they are my 2 favourites. If you don't like aniseed - skip this one.

Initial taste reminds me of Pernod & Black - come on we all did that as teenagers and it either wedded you to Pernod for life or made you vow never to touch the stuff again. The "black" aspect comes from the grenadine which is a surprise as such a small amount is used - powerful flavours from those pomegranates! Its also what gives the drink the lovely rose pink colour.

The Pernod gives the drink a transluscent colour and I would bet it will fluoresce if you put it under a black light. Add a teaspoon of water to make the Pernod go colloidal and give that milky effect which you get with Pernod and water.

The Gin is almost completely masked, but its sitting there in the background adding evilness to the lethality of this drink

I will definitely be adding this to my repeat list: Come on and try it and relive your early days of drinking!

Recipe

1 Measure Gin, 0.75 measure of Pernod, 1 teaspoon of Grenadine.

Shake on Ice and strain into cocktail class - what could be simpler?