Recipes are a divisive thing. Everyone’s got an opinion on which is the most authentic or the best. And if there’s a type of recipe that gets everyone’s panties in a twist, it’s how you make a cocktail. This is probably since you don’t need to know how to cook to be able to make a cocktail, and that opens the floor to just about anybody’s opinionatedness. And as much as I often appreciate digging into the history of a dish and researching the original way of making it, there’s often room for improvement and for tweaking something to suit one’s tastes, while still respecting what it’s meant to taste like.

The old fashioned – known for being (one of?) the first cocktail(s), before cocktails were even known as cocktails – was originally made with a small lump of sugar, saturated with a couple dashes of butters and a short splash of water, muddled to dissolve, then topped up with rye and ice, and garnished with a strip of lemon zest. (Yes, rye was the original spirit of choice – bourbon only gained traction post-prohibition when rye became less common and the sweeter spirit gained popularity.) No cherries, no smushed fruit, no extra soda, none of that simple syrup nonsense. The thing is, since you’re not making a mojito or another cocktail that has fresh herbs or leaves that you need to bruise against the granules of sugar, using simple syrup won’t detract from your cocktail-making or drinking experience. Also, when you muddle the sugar with bitters and water, you might end up with some undissolved sugar at the bottom of your glass which makes the last (and already most diluted) sip of your drink super sweet. If you don’t mind this, go ahead and start with half a cube of sugar, but if you do, don’t let anyone make you feel bad about going the simple syrup route.

I recently discovered a brand of rye whiskey, (ri)1 (pronounced rye one), which is made by Jim Beam. Now, I should probably come out and say right here that the packaging was what caught my eye. I mean, jeez, look at that bottle! It’s so pretty. So, so pretty. As far as rye goes, I have to admit that I don’t know much about the stuff. I don’t really know very much about many types of alcohol – whether it’s wine, beer, sake or whisky – I just tend to adopt the same approach of asking one simple question: “is it yummy?” If so, take note of the name and continue to order. If not, take note of the name and avoid like the plague. This rye is a fairly smooth and sweet rye – it’s not as dry as some other brands I’ve tasted, but it still has that familiar spicy and peppery nose to it.

Okay, and this is where things are going to get a little hairy. So here’s your warning – if you’re one of those purists, you should stop reading now. I’ve tried a number of old fashioneds, and there are a couple of things that I’ve decided that I look for in mine. Most importantly, it shouldn’t be diluted with any extra soda – the melting ice will do a perfectly decent job of gently watering my drink down. I also really don’t like when it’s too sweet, especially to the point of it not really tasting like whisky anymore. Not being a fan of bourbon, I also get quite unhappy if an old fashioned is made with bourbon seeing as it’s pretty much all you’ll be tasting. Some extras which are nice but not necessary including my preference for orange over lemon peel as garnish, and I’ll only accept a garnishing brandied (or maraschino) cherry if it’s homemade, in which case it can actually be quite nice to have it muddled into the drink.

So there you go, this is most definitely not an old fashioned old fashioned. But I think it’s quite delicious, and it also gives you something to do with all those brandied cherries that you may have just made. :)

New Fangled Old Fashioned

1 brandied cherry (see this post for recipe)
1/2 a thin slice fresh orange
2 drops Angostura bitters
60ml rye whiskey – I use (ri)1
5ml simple syrup

1 strip orange zest, to garnish
1 brandied cherry, to garnish

Combine the cherry, orange slice, and bitters in a mixing glass, and muddle gently with the back of a spoon. Add 4-6 ice cubes, rye and simple syrup, briskly stir to combine. Strain into a lowball glass over a couple of fresh ice cubes (to taste). When I remember to make them in advance, I like to use one huge ice cube, instead of a few small ones, since these big cubes melt and dilute your drink slower.

Fold the orange peel over on itself and twist it about a little to express the citrus oil, and rub the rim of the glass with the zest before dropping it in, and garnish with another brandied cherry.

Drink immediately.

Yield: Makes 1.

I’m not sure about you, but I’ve always been more of a beer drinker than any other sort of alcohol. Sure, I enjoy the odd glass of wine (mostly when I’m inhaling a gooey wedge of brie – only since discovering my lactose-intolerance that’s happened with far less frequency), and once in a while I’m in the mood for sharing a bottle of sake, but beer is my go-to drink. However, when I’m in the mood for cocktails, the only one I ever really want is a mojito.

Acidic, sweet, refreshing, minty, bubbly – what’s not to like about this perfect summery drink? Sure, I’ve had a number of terribly made mojitos – bottled lime juice/cordial (and far too much of it), sugar syrup instead of granulated sugar, lazy muddling which fails to properly bruise the mint leaves and bring their full flavour out, and – worst of all – I once had a ‘mojito’ which was nothing more than a glass of Sprite with an extra squeeze of lime, topped with a sprig of mint.

Enter C – to whom I was introduced by one of my best friends in January this year – who regaled me with stories on how he once spent 5 hours straight making mojitos at a friend’s party. Sure, he’s not Cuban (he’s Spanish), and they may not be 100% authentic, but his version of mojitos sounded so good that I invited him over the next day to have a little mojito-making session in my balcony. His version uses both white and brown sugar (white masks the harshness of the rum, and brown gives you that caramel-y molasses layer to the sweetness), as well as white and dark rum. One should note, though, that the effect the white sugar has is that you don’t actually realise how strong the drinks are (one of these and I was giggling like a school girl) while drinking them, which had another friend muttering, “Jeezus – who needs Rohypnol when you’ve got these mojitos?!” Unfortunately, C must have explained the logic behind using both white and dark rum later in the night ‘cos while I know dark rum is used for its distinctive flavour, I have no clue why you don’t just substitute all the white rum with dark.

What I’ve laid out below is more a method than a recipe, the proportions really depend on the size of your glass, but I’ve given rough starting amounts and you should taste and work from there. However, when you’re planning a mojito night, factor in enough ingredients for multiple mojitos per person – these are so damn tasty you’ll never be able to stop at one. Unless you run out of ice.

Mojito

white sugar
soft light brown sugar
thai limes, quartered, seeds removed
mint, leaves picked
white + dark rum
sparkling mineral water (alternatively, substitute with soda water)
crushed ice

Add about 2 teaspoons of each type of sugar to the bottom of the glass. Squeeze about 3 wedges of lime over the sugar, then throw in the spent quarters. Fill the glass to the brim with very loosely packed mint. Muddle for 1-2 minutes until a sludgey paste is formed.

Top the glass all the way up with crushed ice, pour in equal amounts of light and dark rum until there’s about 1-2cm left to the top of the glass (in my glasses this takes slightly over a shot of each), then top up the glass with sparkling water (roughly a shot’s worth). Garnish with a slice or wedge of lime, stick a straw in, and serve.

Stir, and taste: the mojito should be refreshingly perfumed with mint, and have a hint of acidity from the lime (not so much that it makes you pucker, but you should be just about able to taste and identify it). The alcohol shouldn’t burn as you sip it – but both the dark rum and brown sugar should lend that caramel sweetness to your drink. If the balance isn’t right (these proportions are really for my glass specifically), add more of each ingredient as needed.

To refill, don’t empty your cup – just squeeze in another two wedges of lime, add another teaspoon each of white and brown sugar, top the glass up with more ice, and slosh a little more rum into your glass. Dribble in more soda water, and stir. The drunker you get, the less you’ll notice, but these mojitos get better as you build each refill over your used glass.

Yield: Serves one (at a time)

I don’t know whether it’s got something to do with the weather – growing up in Singapore meant that I was always in search of an icy-cold drink – or if it’s cos they just taste nicer this way, but I’ve always been an iced coffee kind of girl. I like hot coffee too, especially on a cold morning, in a warm mug that I can wrap my hands around, but given the choice, I always spring for my coffee iced.

I’ve experimented with different ways of making it at home, chilling espresso, making coffee ice cubes, assembling my coffee and sticking it in a pitcher in the fridge to decant as and when I wanted my fix, but a lot of that just ended up being too pernickety: I’d run out of coffee ice cubes, or space in the freezer, and I’d never have the foresight to make a batch of cold coffee to stick in the fridge so I’d always end up dropping a bunch of ice cubes into not-super-cold coffee, making it more diluted than I liked.

Enter Cold Brew coffee – thanks to the neuroses of a similarly obsessive friend of mine. This is a method of making coffee similar to the Toddy Coffee method, but without the Toddy system, of course. Essentially, all you do is mix some medium-coarse ground coffee with water, and let it steep for 12 hours, before straining out the grounds. What you’re left with is a coffee concentrate which you can then dilute with either milk or water, depending on how you like your coffee.

The other great thing about cold brewing is that there’s a much lower percentage of acid and oils extracted from the coffee (the figure of how much acid and oil extracted is somewhere between 15-35%, depending on which internet source you trust more). This means that the coffee doesn’t end up with a bitter/sour aftertaste when you cool it down or keep it for a while. In fact, a batch of cold brew will keep in the fridge for a good two weeks or so (though I’ve never had a batch last that long in my house)! And while, like me, you might be concerned that lower amounts of oils means less aroma and flavour, the full 12 hour steeping time soaks every last bit of coffee-tastic tasting goodness right out of those beans, so you don’t need to worry about an inferior tasting cuppa joe.

And, since it’s already cold, and super concentrated, you don’t need to worry about it melting all your ice cubes. Just factor in the melting ice in your dilution factor while assembling your drink.

The only hiccup I encountered was that while most of the information I found online on the proportions of coffee to water suggested a 1:4 ratio by volume (i.e. say 1 cup of ground coffee to 4 cups of water), the resulting brew I got was much too weak. I did a few experiments and I’ve settled on my perfect ratio, which is 1:4 by weight. It’s also way easier to measure it out by weight, but if you haven’t got a scale, my ratio works out to be around 1:2 or 2:5 by volume.

Also, this coffee that I made was just So Good, I now drink it by the bucketload. I’ve barely even made it to Starbucks for Toffee Nut Latte season!

Cold Brewed Coffee
250g medium-coarse ground coffee
1000ml cold (distilled) water

Weight out the coffee and water into a non-reactive container that has a tight fitting lid (you want to keep other fridge aromas out). Mix well, to ensure that there are no lumps of coffee grounds, then cover.

Allow to steep for at least 12 hours (I’ve left it for about 16 with no huge detriment either), then strain twice – once through a fine-meshed sieve, then the second time through a coffee filter or a sieve lined with muslin/cheesecloth. Store in an air-tight container in the fridge for up to two weeks.

Yield: Around 700ml of cold brew

Awesome Iced Lattes
1 tbsp simple syrup*
150ml whole milk, very cold
1 shot (30ml) cold brew
4-8 ice cubes

Combine all the ingredients and stir well to combine. Enjoy :)

*simple syrup is equal parts of sugar and water by weight, heated on the stove or in the microwave until the sugar fully dissolves and a clear solution is produced.

Lane Crawford is a shopping haven for the well-heeled in Hong Kong. If you’re not familiar with the brand, think of a department store, then replace every single item in it with luxury brands, like Prada, Zegna, and a few dozen other less-known (but equally expensive) ones.

But we’ve already established that I’m not really into clothes. Nor bags, nor shoes, nor any of the usual wallet-killers. So what does Lane Crawford have over me? In particular, I’d direct your attention to the store at Pacific Place – which is where they conveniently house their Home & Lifestyle section. Along with a particular set of antique crockery, they also have the most awesome designs for flatware, glassware and tableware.

A couple of weeks ago, I was with bunny in Pacific Place (we were heading towards great supermarket – the other money sucker in PP), and we walked past Lane Crawford and noticed that they were having a sale. I started gathering up single plates of different designs, wanting so desperately to add them to our collection, but as wonderful as the discounts were, Lane Crawford still is a rather high end store. In the end, I settled for three things: a set of cherrywood palettes (they came in a pair), a beautiful spreading knife, and a real hot chocolate pot, complete with moussoir!

As you can imagine, I’ve been having a field day with the lot – the hot chocolate pot in particular. Hot chocolate is pretty much the only way that bunny will ingest any form of chocolate, so it’s been fun using the pot to whip up frothy, rich batches of hot chocolate for the two of us (and any guests in the house). Here’s a simple recipe I threw together, which makes it rather thick and rich – i.e. just the way I like it. Feel free, of course, to add in any other seasonings and embellishments you prefer, like cinnamon, freshly grated nutmeg, a pinch of spice, a shot of whiskey or even to float a handful of mini marshmallows over the top. I like it just like this though, and there’s really nothing better than huddling up under a blanket on a cold, windy night, cradling a warm cup of hot chocolate next to someone you love.

Hot Chocolate

80g dark chocolate (65% cocoa solids and up)
500g full cream milk
100g whipping cream
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp cocoa powder

Warm your serving jug by pouring in boiling water and covering it. Chop the chocolate into small shards and place into a bowl.

Combine the milk, cream, cocoa powder and sugar together in a saucepan over a low flame and gently heat until it comes to just below boiling point, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and pour over the chopped chocolate, and allow it to sit for one minute to melt the chocolate. Whisk the mixture thoroughly in order to dissolve any small lumps, then discard the hot water from your jug, pour in the hot chocolate and froth. Serve immediately.

(Serves 2-3)