There is no need to stick to mulled Pimm’s at Christmas with cocktail ideas like these from the team at Skylon…

Fire Exit

Gosia Szwadzka, bartender at Skylon, describes this as the perfect cocktail if you want to ward off a cold, because not only is it warm and full of citrus flavour, but the Wild Turkey bourbon is 50.5% abv, so it will definitely kill off any bugs!

Ingredients:

1 cinnamon stick
4 cloves
15ml Luxardo Maraschino
50ml Wild Turkey bourbon
1 piece orange peel

Method:

Place the cinnamon stick, cloves and alcohol into a small pan then (carefully!) light. Allow to flame for about 10 seconds while twisting the orange peel high above the pan – this releases orange oil, which will catch in the flames. Pour into a cognac glass.

Peated Cherry

This cocktail is inspired by the orient, with Yuzu juice acting as a stronger alternative to lemon. Hakushu 12 is a 12-year-old Japanese single malt whisky, which provides a smoky element. At Skylon it is served in an old tobacco box with a “pipe” filled with the cocktail and topped up with a little absinthe.

Ingredients:

35ml Hakushu 12
15ml Maraschino
10ml Yuzu juice
10ml plum sake
5ml gomme sugar
10ml Pernod Absinthe

Method:

Place all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker and stir well. At Skylon this is served in a grappa flute with an absinthe “pipe” into which some of the cocktail is poured and a little absinthe added on top.

Seven

Figs are a fruit that Zoran Peric, bar consultant at Skylon, likes to use in the winter. He explains that Havana 7 works really well with the flavour of the figs and a sour note from the Choya balances the cocktail’s sweetness. Choya is a brand of umeshu, a Japanese liqueur made from the ume fruit, which is similar to a plum, but more acidic.

Ingredients:

Flesh from half a fresh fig
20ml lemon juice
12.5ml fig syrup
25ml Choya red cherry
35ml Havana 7

Method:

Muddle the fig flesh with the lemon juice in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. Add the fig syrup, Choya, Havana 7 and ice and shake well. Serve in a Martini glass.

At Skylon, this is garnished with half a fig, into the cut surface of which they drip a little absinthe. This is then coated with a layer of brown sugar and carefully caramelised with a blowtorch.

Further information:

Try any of these cocktails from the list at Skylon restaurant’s bar.