Amber spritz: a mead cocktail for summer's end
Liam
Every month in AOPP we host a Happy Hour with drinks and snacks so that all our students, reseachers, and professionals have a chance to interact and socialise.
For Happy Hour, I've been trying to make a selection of cocktails that change with the season, and, with summer coming to an end, I wanted a pair of cocktails that were mostly light and refreshing but with a touch of autumn about them. One of these was Difford's Belafonte, a bittersweet fruity aperitivo, so the other one had to be sweet.
Enter, the amber spritz:
| Ingredient | Single | 3 l (meas.) | 3 l (vol.) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mead, semi-sweet, floral, sack strength Hive Mind Wye Valley Traditional Mead (14.5% ABV) | 1¼ s | 33 s | 825 ml |
| Botanical or floral gin Pickering's Gin with Scottish Botanicals (42% ABV) | ¼ s | 6 s | 150 ml |
| Sparkling wine, acidic, semi-bitter, citrus Francesc Ricart Cava Brut NV (11.5% ABV) | 1½ s | 39 s | 975 ml |
| Soda water | 1½ s | 39 s | 975 ml |
| Lemon slices | |||
| Grapefruit slices | |||
It came out light, with an overall floral honey taste, and pleasantly sweet without feeling like a sweet cocktail. It works out to about 10.1% ABV.
The ‘single’ measures above are sized to a small wine glass.
I think it would probably be better with quite a bit more mead, a little bit more gin, and less soda water, so that the honey taste was a bit more prominent.