The 12 Days of Ginmas – Christmas Gin Recipes

IMG_0611

One of the best things about my new house is that my new local supermarket is Waitrose. Now, Waitrose is my happy place; brilliant customer service, top-notch cakes in the cafe and it’s full of middle-class people who say sorry when they nearly bump you with your trolley. Also, if you have a Waitrose card you get one cup of tea or coffee a day. I tell you, if you haven’t mooched round Waitrose (childless, obviously) with your free tea or coffee you haven’t lived. Honest.

6846d2c4629f11e3aa6312de58c71adc_8

One of the things I like about the mighty Waitrose is their booze selection. They have loads of it but not just your standard drinks. I could stand there for hours gazing at the array of spirits… but I don’t. Not every day, anyway. Last time I was there I picked up a bottle of Bombay Sapphire (it’s my everyday favourite gin: not wildly expensive but premium enough to be delicious). And because it’s Christmase – we all know everyone likes a tot of gin at Christmas (or Easter, Diwali, Hannukah, or any day with ‘day’ in it, actually) – I thought I’d share with you my favourite gin drinks.

Welcome to the 12 Days of Ginmas!!

A few rules I have with my gin drinking, before we get started: as I’ve said, the gin is Bombay Sapphire but for tonic water-based drinks it HAS to be Fever Tree. There’s no beating it in my opinion. Also, I use 50ml servings because I cant taste it enough if it’s only 25ml. Ahem. But in the interests of moderate drinking I’ve used 25ml measures below. 

The Twelve Days of Ginmas - Cucumber

1. Gin & Cucumber

My favourite way to drink gin. Terribly refreshing in the summer, drank while you’re sitting by a river lazily watching the world go round.

  • 25ml (or more, no judgement) gin
  • Small chunk of cucumber, chopped
  • 200ml tonic
  • Chop your cucumber and add to the glass: if you like the taste (I do) you can muddle it a little with a spoon.
  • Add a couple of cubes of ice, pour gin and tonic over.
  • Stir and serve.

2. Blood Orange & Pear Gin Cocktail

I love how the blood orange in this makes the cocktail seem ever so Christmassy.

  • 25ml gin
  • Good slug (approx 50ml) of blood orange juice
  • Good slug of pear juice
  • Good slug of soda water
  • Pour gin into glass over a handful of ice.
  • Add juices and soda water to finish. Serve.

The Twelve Days of Ginmas - Lime

3. Gin & Tonic with lime

The classic. Easy, peasy, yummy.

  • 25ml gin
  • Half a lime
  • 200ml tonic
  • Chop your half a lime in half again, squeeze one quarter into the glass and use the spent lime to wipe the rim of the glass.
  • Discard and add other quarter to glass with a handful of ice.
  • Pour gin and tonic over and serve. YUM!

The Twelve Days of Ginmas - Gin 75

4. Gin 75

Surely the most sophisticated gin cocktail out there. Every time I drink this at home out of a boring old champagne flute I think I need to get myself some proper saucer champagne glasses. Santa?

  • 25ml gin
  • Juice of half a lemon
  • 15ml sugar syrup
  • 40ml champagne (or prosecco)
  • Pour gin, lemon juice and sugar syrup into a shaker.
  • Add ice cubes and shake.
  • Strain into a glass and top with champagne.
  • Add a twist of lemon and serve.

5. The Negroni

I LOVE ordering a Negroni. It makes me feel like I’m in the 1920’s.

A Negroni is equal parts Campari, gin, sweet vermouth on the rocks with fresh orange. I could talk about it for ever here, but Buzzfeed do it better.

The Twelve Days of Ginmas - Apple, Pear and Gin

6. Apple, Pear & Gin

If you have loads of time you could make your own but I just buy Copella juices. These are on special offer in Waitrose at the moment…

  • 25ml gin
  • 50ml apple juice
  • 50ml pear juice
  • Tsp honey
  • Squeeze lemon juice
  • Sprig of rosemary to garnish
  • Add juices, honey, gin and ice to a shaker.
  • Shake and pour over ice.
  • Add a sprig of rosemary to garnish.

7. Gin on the rocks with a twist

For the most hardened gin drinker, just serve 50ml gin over ice with a twist of lemon or lime. Yum.

8. Gin & Ginger

Wintery and warming.

  • 25ml gin
  • Juice of quarter of a lime
  • Ginger beer (again, I love Fever Tree)
  • Pour gin over ice and add lime juice.
  • Pour ginger beer over.
  • Garnish with lime wedge and serve.

The Twelve Days of Ginmas - Gin & Thyme

9. Gin & Thyme

I love Thyme in the winter. With chicken, with roast potatoes and now with gin.

  • 25ml gin
  • Splash triple sec
  • Juice of half a lime
  • Tonic water
  • 3-4 thyme sprigs
  • Add gin, sugar syrup, triple sec, thyme and lime juice to a shaker.
  • Shake and strain over ice.
  • Top with tonic water.

10. Cucumber, Celery & Gin sorbet

OK, so not a cocktail, but still pretty epic, right? You can find this recipe over at Martha Stewart (I love you Martha).

11. The Southside

Possibly the most refreshing cocktail you will ever drink.

  • 25ml gin
  • Juice of a quarter of a lemon
  • Sprig of mint
  • Dash of sugar syrup
  • Soda water
  • Add gin, lemon juice, syrup and mint to a shaker.
  • Shake vigorously with ice then strain over a glass.
  • Top up with soda water to taste and garnish with more mint.

The Twelve Days of Ginmas - The Southside

12. Gin & Elderflower

Are there many things more British than good old Elderflower drinks? I use Elderflower pressé for this (Belvoir, because I am fancy) but you could also use cordial and soda water.

  • 25ml gin
  • Elderflower pressé

 

  • Pour gin over ice and add Elderflower pressé. Serve.

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

5 Comments

  1. Anna wrote:

    Genius ( I had to fight the obvious pun here…) Gin is called “mothers ruin” where I come from. Which makes it feel very wrong that this Christmas, for the first time, I am now considering asking for a bottle of Bombay as my main present. Co-incidentaly (or not…) it will be my first Christmas as a Mother. Thanks to your awesome recipes, I will now be fabulously ‘ruined’… the only way to go down, surely?

    Posted 12.12.13 Reply
    • alice wrote:

      Ahh I wish the pun was there, I love a good pun! I can well understand the ‘mother’s ruin’ tag: quite a few pre-school mums were fairly ruined this morning after the committee’s night out.

      I’ll drink to ‘fabulously ruined’! x

      Posted 12.12.13 Reply
  2. Mia wrote:

    I love this post (wish I could sample them all but will wait for pregnancy to be over), my husband will love it more ;)

    You’d like his blog, btw; http://mrjoolz.tumblr.com – he blogs exclusively about gin (and some other booze sometimes) – relative to your interests – and mine, when I’m not cooking babies!

    Posted 12.12.13 Reply
    • alice wrote:

      My friend bought me a bottle of Hendricks as a ‘welcome to the world’ present for Hux and it was the best thing anyone gave me at that time.

      Thanks for the awesome blog rec x

      Posted 12.12.13 Reply
  3. I love the Waitrose spirits aisle! I wander around it imagining which gins and vodkas I would buy if I had a budget of £45 per bottle and wanted a super cool looking drinks cabinet. One day maybe. I do love cucumber in gin though – such a great flavour combination.

    Posted 12.13.13 Reply