Olly Smith - Fizz: 80 Joyful Cocktails and Mocktails for Every Occasion

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Ebury Press, an imprint of Ebury Publishing,
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Text copyright Olly Smith 2019

Olly Smith has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

First published by Ebury Press in 2019

penguin.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Design: Studio Polka
Photography: Kim Lightbody
Food Stylist: Tamara Vos
Prop Stylist: Jo Harris

ISBN 9781473567382

This book is about sharing fun flavours for any occasion in simple cocktail recipes with one thing in common: fizz.

Sparkles are shortcuts to joyful moments. Whether its champagne, cava, cider, beer, soda or kombucha, bubbles invariably buzz as we celebrate the occasions, people and places that are most special to us. With simplicity, these drinks, whether cocktail or mocktail, are designed to take your mood to cruising altitude without the need for take off.

Depending on what fizz youre popping, the drink youre creating will have a unique core characteristic. For instance:

• Classic champagne has many merits.
• Mellow fizz such as prosecco works with fruity flavours from rhubarb cordial to pomegranate molasses.
• Sour kombucha can spritz up zesty tropical flavours such as passionfruit.
• Cava is more savoury and pairs well with herbal and aromatic ingredients, such as lovage and green olives.
• There are English and sparkling wines that you may not know much about.
• The revolution in craft brewing brings its own beer frontier breaking across style, depths and texture.
• The supremacy of cider is as yet unsung, with some of the finest and best value bottle-fermented bargains.
• The salinity of your soda, spice of ginger beer or kick of tonic sets up the speakers for the other flavours to dance around.
• Sake can sparkle and with high umami and low acidity lends itself to garden-infused cocktails featuring gentle refreshment, such as cucumber water.

In this book, youll find out how these all bring the bubbles fizzing into a balance of tantalising colour, flavour and texture.

To help you pick the right sip for the mood and moment, each mocktail and cocktail is given a three bar icon rating to indicate how strong the flavours are:

One: Sublime subtlety

Two: Moreish and marvellous

Three: A detonation of deliciousness

Theres also an icon to recommend which shape of glass to use for each cocktail, and youll discover the context in which some of the recipes were introduced onto the world stage. Theres also a section with recipes for reductions, syrups and homemade ingredients, which feature throughout and can be used as the base for the simplest non-alcoholic drinks when topped up with sparkling water.

All the recipes make one drink, except for a few in Parties and Picnics.

By all means pick and choose from this list, but if youre serious about fettling your fizz, these are handy to have.

How bubbles are made has a big impact on the sensation of the drink. Bottle-fermented drinks such as champagne have smaller bubbles, which gives a more delicate texture. Carbonated drinks such as soda water have larger bubbles, making for a more prickly sensation. And somewhere in the middle, tank-fermented fizz such as prosecco gives the sensation of a caressing cascade.

In this book, I have divided the fabulous fizz flavours into occasions. No need for an invitation, dive in and join me in celebrating the fun of fizz!

Great ingredients are the cornerstone of superlative cocktails, but how you blend, layer and mix them is transformative. These techniques will explain how to turn your cocktail from a mere drink into a delicacy.

Shaking unleashes the fabulous four: mixing, chilling, diluting and aeration. Shaking ice in the mixture dilutes the mixture as the ice melts. Its a silent ingredient delivering the key to any great cocktail balance. As the ice cascades around the shaker it chills the liquid. It also unleashes aeration, beating air into the drink. Meanwhile the liquids are merging and mixing together.

+ TIPPLE TIP
How you shake is key. Youre bringing the drink to life, not rocking it to sleep, so you need to apply some elbow grease.

• Always shake out from the shoulder of your strongest arm.
• Extend your weaker arm as you shake.
• Step up the speed, dont be afraid to really give it some.

A key piece of kit is the Boston shaker a glass and a tin. If you have trouble separating them, heres a quick fix. Give the tin part a good squeeze and the seal should break easily. If still stuck, youll notice one side where the glass meets the tin is almost flush, the other side has a gap that looks like a grin. Hold the shaker with the gap side towards you and find where the gap just begins on the left-hand side. Using the heel of your left hand, tap the tin where it meets the glass and the gap begins. Easy. No need to bash the shaker on the kitchen worktop.

The simple way to make a drink is to pour into a glass, fill with ice and gently stir. But when topping up with fizz, timing is vital. Weve all seen a glass of fizz bubble over if its poured too quickly, so ice first, fizz next, then stir gently.

+ TIPPLE TIP
When topping up with fizz, always leave room for more ice. If the ice is not touching the bottom of the glass then more ice is required.

Stirring delivers dilution, chilling and mixing.

+ TIPPLE TIP
The quality of the ice is vital. If it is fresh out of the freezer, rinse off the frosting to prevent your drink rapidly diluting. Doing so will ensure ice thats crystal clear and solid, helping you to make a perfectly balanced cocktail.

To extract a juice, oil or aroma from a fruit or herb, give it a little bashing or a muddle. Youll have probably seen limes being muddled for mojitos. Instead of a muddler, you can use a flat-ended rolling pin. Push down onto the fruit or herbs moving them around gently as you pull up. The juice, oil and aromas will release but dont overdo it or youll bring out bitterness. A little bashing is best.