The Boy and His Poison: The Sonic Screwdriver

The traditional Doctor Who cocktail should probably be a Banana Daiquiri but we do things differently here. I'll leave that on the dessert table. Instead my sonic screwdriver contains enough booze to make the room spin like a TARDIS, and sonic blue glow-in-the-dark ice (we know you like your foodstuffs to glow in the dark). This orange and vodka combination is a nod to the classic screwdriver, but with a bit of Time Lord inspiration.

With the aid of a UV torch, a bottle of tonic water with its magic quinine, you can create tiny booze filled lamps that simultaneously chill and suspend your drink in a blue glowy light (just don't forget to freeze your glasses the night before.)

Finally there's the garnish. This is a short drink and it warrants gentle sipping. Nothing makes sipping more interesting than the Heston-endorsed answer to all problems ... popping candy. So, switch on your UV lights, pour, and serve just in time for the time-bending action to start.

The Sonic Screwdriver (serves 1)

You'll need:

• 50ml Vodka
• 25ml Blue Curacao
• 25ml Lime juice
• Tonic Water
• Popping candy
• A squeeze of lemon juice 

Prepare your glasses:

1. The night before you want your drinks, pour tonic water into your chosen glasses until they're a third full and pop them (carefully balanced, on a box of fish fingers perhaps) in the freezer.
2. When you're ready for your drinks, squeeze the lemon juice onto a plate and use it to coat the rim of the glass.
3. Dip a finger into the curacao and wipe round the rim of the glass.
4. Pour the pop rocks onto a saucer before dipping the rim of the glass into the pop rocks.

Make it:

1. In a shaker or large glass, mix the curacao, vodka and lemon juice.
2. Pour into the centre of the glass avoiding the popping candy and serve with the UV light switch on.
3. Sit back in wonder. 

The boy and his poison: The Purple Haze

My attitude towards cocktails is along similar lines to my attitude to hot food from service stations or first dates in Wetherspoons - incongruous and almost certainly a grave error. Nevertheless, when you turn up to your local and find a drink on the specials board full of seasonal flavours and charged with refreshing Prosecco, it thought it would be worth waiving my prejudices in the name of my role as daring Domestic Sluttery cocktail hunter.

It turned out to be a great decision. Between the sweet autumnal tastes of blackberries and apple, the unusual warmth of the sloe gin and the fizz of the Prosecco, the Purple Haze has the perfect balance of flavours. It's definitely glamorous enough to roll out as an aperitif, but the ease with which you can throw one together also makes it a great indulgent treat-for-yourself drink.

You'll need:

• 50ml sloe gin
• 25ml apple juice
• A clutch of blackberries (5 or so but no need to be specific)
• Prosecco or any sparkling wine you have to hand (not too dry)

Make it:

1. Put your blackberries into the base of a cocktail shaker and crush with the end of a rolling pin until they're pulped
2. Add the sloe gin and apple juice. 
3. Mix and check the flavour, depending on the tartness of your blackberries and sweetness of your sloe gin you may have to add a little lemon juice or sugar syrup to compensate but the mixture above didn't need much tweaking. 
4. Strain into the base of a champagne flute
5. Top up with Prosecco

The Boy and His Poison: The Greyhound

The new cocktail season seems to have just idled its way past everyone and all of a sudden the days are short and everything is 'whisky' this and 'damson' that. Fortunately this week I've taken the long view and decided that we're going to have six months of autumn/winter/spring to labour through the dark heavy cocktails, so perhaps first we should try a little mood accelerator based on sunny grapefruit and a hint of salt.

Be under no misapprehension, the star of this drink is the salt. The primary ingredients of yellow grapefruit juice (although pink grapefruit works equally as well) combined with gin make a perfectly adequate drink, but it's the tiny pinch of sea-salt that gives this drink an indefinably moreish quality. Just the thing to take the edge off of Friday.

You'll need:

• 50ml of premiumish gin (something with recognisable botanicals)
• 75ml grapefruit juice 
• A dash of angostura bitters
• Half a pinch of Maldon sea salt

Shake it:

1. Dry shake the salt, grapefruit and gin for 10 seconds
2. Pour over an ice filled tumbler

The Boy and His Poison: The Caged Peach and Mint Julep

The lengths I'll go to in order to hunt out a good cocktail for my readers. This week I have mostly been incarcerated.

Don't get me wrong… it was a self imposed stint of 5-star incarceration but why let trivialities get in the way of a good story. I had a few days off and decided to head West to Oxford for a bit of R&R. I'd been meaning to check out Malmaison's converted former prison for a while so I took the opportunity to also explore the bar menu for a bit of inspiration. What I found was the peach and mint julep, an incredible invigoration of a classic recipe with the addition of one simple ingredient that turns a heavy dry classic cocktail into a sumptuous and fruity sipping affair. A train ride and a little tweaking later, let me present to you the Caged Peach and Mint Julep.

You'll need:

• 50ml of good bourbon (Four Roses, Makers Mark or Bullit)
• 50ml of peach puree
• 25ml of lemon juice
• 25ml of King's Ginger (optional)
• 3 sprigs of mint
• Ginger beer

For the peach puree
You can either pick this up from Amazon (and it's a great ingredient to have lying around for bellinis), or make it by blending a can of peach segments in syrup.

Then shake it

1. Muddle the peach puree with two of the mint sprigs in the base of a shaker.
2. Add the bourbon and lemon juice (with the King's Ginger if you have any to hand).
3. Stir for a few seconds and pour into a tumbler or preferably an Old Fashioned glass and top with ice until approximately 2/3 full.
4. Top up with ginger beer and garnish with a mint sprig.

The Boy and His Poison: The Tequila Old Fashioned

This one's coming with an official health warning, I lost two hours of Tuesday evening (I like to dedicate my Tuesdays to the bohemian pursuit of Domestic Sluttery experimentation), a significant portion of my tequila reserves and spent most of Wednesday in a slightly vegetative state thanks to the moreish deliciousness of this beguiling fella... there’s nothing quite so decadent as a Wednesday morning hangover.

I've been desperate to try out the recipe for a while but as a diehard traditional Old Fashioned fan I wasn't quite sure what to expect. It’s one of those cocktails that, whilst superficially easy to construct, has been elevated to a bit of an art-form. I mean this drink gets its own three-minute guest appearance in Mad Men, so why would I suggest the blasphemy of taking it south of the border and pumping it full of tequila and agave? The answer is because the result is a slow-sipping, smile inducing syrupy indulgent treat. So leave all your preconceptions of summery margaritas and gaudy tequila sunrises, this is going to be the adult drink that sees me through the autumn till I can break out the port and brandy for Christmas.

Incidentally, get some huge ice cubes for short drinks like this that you want to keep cool and last. They look amazing and won't dilute your drink.

You'll need

• 75 ml of good tequila (reposado or blanco)
• 25 ml Agave nectar (you could probably stretch it to honey but agave tastes a little more subtle in the drink)
• Angostura Bitters (although experimenting with chocolate bitters gave an even more interesting taste if you have them)
• Orange peel to flavour and garnish
• Brandy soaked cherry to garnish

Shake it

1. Drop the agave, bitters and a slice of orange peel (just speed peel a strip) into the base of a cocktail shaker, then take out the days aggression on it with the end of a rolling pin, crushing the essential oils out of the peel and mixing the bitters with the syrup
2. Add the tequila and dry shake for a few seconds (if you drop the ice in first it will cause your agave to turn into fudge), then add some ice and shake again.
3. Strain into an ice-filled glass with one of the cherries, peel another bit of orange zest, squeeze it over the top of the drink and let it sink to the side of the glass.

The Boy and His Poison: The Whisky Daisy

As I write this I'm sat in the sweaty, humid embers of what's been a pretty amazing English summer*. So it feels apt to sign-out of the season with a not-quite-long, not-quite-short ice-cold, refreshing but boozy cocktail recipe. What makes this one even more interesting is that it seems to have almost completely dropped off the bartender map. So grab yourself something sour, something boozy, and something sweet and let's make a Daisy.

This is one of those pre-prohibition, impossible to get wrong recipes, this isn't just a drink but more an approach to using ingredients. It essentially involves taking a standard sour mix (think gin sour... gin plus lemon and sugar syrup) tweaks the recipe a little (with a bit of depth from grenadine) and then tops it up with seltzer water. Thirst quenching, boozy and capable of using up whatever's lurking in the back of your cupboard. It's the swiss army knife of summer drinks.

*N.B. this also works brilliantly for cheering up a soggy Autumnal Friday.

You'll need

• 50ml of something very boozy (don't be coy, try them all, I went for 100% proof Wild Turkey bourbon)
• 25ml of sugar syrup
• 4 dashes of grenadine
• Juice of half a lemon
• Soda water

Make it:

1. Ok, if we're going for authenticity I'm going to have to get you to shave some ice, 1/3 of your shaker to be precise. Instead I'd suggest just filling your shaker with ice.
2. Add the spirit, grenadine, lemon juice and sugar syrup.
3. Shake for 30 seconds.
4. Strain into a cocktail glass, or medium tumbler.
5. Top up with soda water.

The boy and his poison: Sloe Gin Jelly

Who doesn't love jelly… and who doesn't love gin? Now, imagine for a second I could suggest a combination of those two delicious treats which is easy enough to execute that it could be a mid-week gin-fix, a cheeky jello-shot or a dessert that could sail you through a Virginia Woolfe-esque dinner party with a minimum of fuss.

This recipe came about after a recent trip to my folks, meaning we were blessed with our annual bottle of west country sloe gin. The syrupy-sweet nature of Sloe Gin usually relegates these inherited bottles to the secondary-spirit cupboard (you know the one… in my case it needs a step ladder to access it and it’s full of random liqueurs and pure grain alcohol) that was until I realised that sloe gin was an incredible flavour enhancer to dark fruit jellies. Obviously the next step was to work out whether I could make a jelly where purely the flavour of the sloe gin was allowed to sing (*spoiler alert* it does). So, grab yourself a peeler, a bottle of sloe gin and some lemon sorbet. Then thank me for the sort of dessert that will loved by even the most discerning booze hound.

You'll need for 4 servings:

• 300ml of sloe gin
• 200ml of apple juice
• 1 tbsp of blackberry (or another berry based) jam
• 1 tbsp caster sugar
• 6 gelatine leaves (you can substitute for agar if you need to but the consitency will be slightly rougher)
• Candied lemon zest for decoration
• A scoop of lemon sorbet 

Make the jelly:

• Soak the gelatine leaves in tepid water for five minutes.
• Meanwhile gently heat the sloe gin, apple juice, berry jam and sugar in a small pan.
• Pour the heated gin based liquid into a jug and leave for ten minutes.
• Wring out the gelatine leaves and add back to the saucepan with a couple of tablespoons of the sloe gin mixture.
• Heat the mixture on a low heat until the gelatin has mixed then gradually add the rest of the sloe gin mixture.
• Mix thoroughly and pour into small glasses or serving dishes, then allow to cool for five hours in a fridge.

Make the candied lemon zest:

• Peel strips from a lemon with an oxo peeler before stripping the pith off with a pairing knife. 
• Slice into narrow, hair-like strands with the knife (watch out for your fingers).
• Add the zest to a pan of boiling water for a few minutes before removing and allowing to dry for ten minutes.
• In a fresh pan add a cup of water, a cup of sugar and the lemon zest and boil for ten minutes.
• Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and allow to dry on a rack or a sheet of foil.

To serve:

• Place a scoop of sorbet on the jelly.
• Scatter with candied lemon for artistic effect. 
• Serve and devour immediately. 

The boy and his poison: Tiki Drinks

it's a universally accepted truth that acclimatising back to normality after a seven day food and booze-fuelled holiday bliss is a harrowing experience. That 'summer holiday comedown' is traumatic. But it doesn't have to be that way, and with the aid of a few cocktail cabinet regulars, tiki drinks are the answer.

I'm pretty sure you're all familiar with, and capable of throwing together a Mai Tai, Mojito or Margarita, or maybe even shoving a cocktail umbrella in a Pina Colada or Singapore Sling, but in order to properly ward off those post-holiday blues I thought I'd share the recipes to two of my favourite tiki drinks, the walk-in-the-park delicious London Sour and the deadly Zombie.

The London Sour
Invented in the London branch of Trader Vic's this recipe ditches the kitsch plethora of liqueurs in favour of amazing flavours.

You'll need:

• 50ml Whisky (Scotch works best)
• 25ml orange juice
• 25ml lemon juice
• 1 dash sugar syrup/agave

Then make:

• Shake all the ingredients over ice
• Strain into a martini glass
• Play tiki tunes

The Zombie  
Less of a drink and more a supermarket booze list order, this beauty is the paradigm of tiki punches. If you're feeling dangerous serve with a 151 rum drenched, flaming half passion fruit.

You'll need:

• 25ml clear rum (think Bacardi)
• 25ml golden rum
• 25ml dark rum (old navy)
• 25ml apricot brandy
• 25ml pineapple juice
• 25ml part lime juice

Then Shake:

• Pour all the ingredients into an ice filled shaker
• Shake
• Pour into an ice filled tumbler, and if you're feeling adventurous follow the tip above.

Baking for Beginners: Negroni Pie

It's rare for two words to inspire the giddy child-like sense of excitement and awe usually reserved for events like 'the-ice-cream-man'. Whilst there are definitely phrases like "free drinks" and "gin... 2 for 1" that can bait the average punter, they'll never equate to the exquisite excitement of noticing something like 'Negroni Pie' on my twitter feed.

When the notion of this amazing desert appeared out of the blue I had the misfortune of being stuck in the office, woefully far away from a kitchen and with no prospect of recreating this pinnacle of boozy desserts. So a week later I decided to take a days holiday and recreate my own version of this marvel. So without further ado I present to you the Domestic Sluttery Negroni Pie.

Negroni pie.
For the filling you'll need:

• 1 packet of shortcrust pastry
• 200g sugar
• 1 tbsp butter
• 2 separated eggs
• 3 tablespoons of cornflower
• 1 cup of milk
• A pinch of salt
• 75ml of Campari
• 25ml of gin
• 50ml of sweet vermouth (although Punte Mes worked out for me really well) 
• 1 Red grapefruit
• 1 medium pot of whipping cream

Make it!
Make the base

• Preheat your oven to 190C
• Roll out the pastry onto a floured surface until it exceeds the diameter of the tin
• Line a buttered 20cm tart tin with greaseproof paper
• Fill with baking beans and blind bake at 190°C for 25 minutes
• Pull those baking beans out and bake for a further 5 minutes at 150°C

Meanwhile for the custard

• Beat the sugar and butter until well blended.
• Add each egg yolk one at a time beating into the mixture.
• When you have a nice smooth consistency, sieve in the flour, pour in the milk and add your pinch of salt.
• Now for the first two parts of the booze. Add the gin and Campari.
• Add a squeeze of grapefruit juice and two teaspoons of grated grapefruit zest and beat everything together
• Beat the egg whites in a separate bowl and fold them into your custard.

The final act

• Pour your custard into your pie shell and bake for one hour at 150°c.
• Which gives you just enough time to add 50ml of vermouth to your cream as you whip it.
• When a knife comes out clean from your pie it's ready to come out and cool for an hour.
• Then pipe on your boozy cream and grate on grapefruit zest to garnish.
• Serve with a negroni (obviously).

The boy and his poison: The Watermelon Cooler

Let's face it, we're approaching the levels of heat succinctly observed by Ray Winstone in Sexy Beast. I'm sure there's lots of validity to the seasonal advice of keeping hydrated and suitably smeared in Factor 40 but Doctor Nick would like to also submit his own tip re: sun management this month… a water melon cooler.

Now, usually I'm a fan of brutally short punchy cocktails but as refreshing long drinks go this one is nigh on perfect. Easy to make in bulk with the sweet taste of watermelon and adult notes of the cucumber, this drink is a no brainer for summer. It's a versatile little number that could just as easily suck up a few shots of vodka or better still a cucumber-based gin like Hendrick's or its cheaper neighbour Gordon's Crisp Cucumber. However, it's summer, and if you're going to have a long sun-downer nothing works better as a spirit than tequila.

Incidentally the seed of this drink came from the adorable reformed-convict we'd all love to be our mum Martha Stewart, so lets all take a Friday moment to enjoy Martha and the cookie monster. 

For two lushes you'll need:

• 100ml plus a cheeky tot extra of reposado tequila (or any white spirit other than rum)
• 1/2 a cucumber
• 400g roughly chopped watermelon (just less than half a supermarket one)
• Juice of 1 lime
• A squeeze of agave nectar (or honey)

Make the base:

• With a vegetable peeler peel several long strips of cucumber and set aside
• Remove the remainder of the skin and chop the flesh roughly
• Chop the watermelon flesh removing as many seeds as possible
• Add the cucumber and melon to a blender
• Blend and sieve into a cocktail shaker.

Now shake:

• Add the lime juice and tequila
• Chuck in a handful of ice and shake for 10 seconds
• Line a small tumbler with the fine cucumber peel
• Strain the shakers contents into the glass

The Boy and His Poison: Negroni Gin Float

If you don't have the excuse of a regular gig as a cocktail columnist, family members start to suspect you of being a bit of a lush. It's with great pleasure I can inform my nearest and dearest that the last few months of being a dedicated bar-louche have been consigned to the 'Domestic Sluttery research' bank.

My taste buds started craving a Negroni this week, but imagine how much more fun the drink might be with a bit of slush-puppy inspired deconstruction.

The Negroni Gin Float consists of two scoops of Campari and vermouth sorbet floating in ice cold gin.  The alcohol the sorbet doesn't even need stirring, it just happily sets into a delicious silky smooth consistency. Just make sure you don't get through too much of the stuff before you serve your guests.

Negroni Gin Float (the sorbet should make enough for 5 cocktails, if you're having two scoops)
For the sorbet you'll need:

• 150ml Water
• 50ml Campari
• 50ml Martini Rosso
• 50ml Pink grapefruit juice 
• 150g Sugar
• Zest of 1/4 of a grapefruit
• Squeeze of lemon (optional)

For the cocktail you'll need:

• 50ml gin
• Grapefruit zest
• Lemon peel for garnish

Make the sorbet the night before:

• Add the water, Campari, martini, squeezed grapefruit juice and sugar to a small pan. Gently heat until the sugar has dissolved.
• Give it a taste and if you like a bit of tang squeeze some lemon in. It's a matter of personal taste but I think that sugar needs to be kept in check and a bit of lemon or lime is a perfect way to do it.
• Pour the mixture into a tupperware pot and drop it in the freezer overnight. I don't have an ice cream maker to test but it would make the job easier and avoid ice crystals, although bear in mind the alcohol does skew the freezing process so don't be too heavy-handed, no matter how tempting. 

Then shake (sort of): 

• Using a vegetable peeler at a 45 degree angle take a thin constant strip of skin from the base to the top of a lemon. 
• Line a small tumbler with the lemon. 
• Scoop two balls of the sorbet and drop into the base of the tumbler.
• Drown the sorbet in 50ml of your frozen gin.
• Grate a little grapefruit zest over the top of the drink to compliment the aromatics of the lemon peel and the slowly melting sorbet.

The boy and his poison: The Amante Piquant

I'm a firm believer in alcohol-based incentivisation. Never has this been more true than during the last couple of weeks, where a boozy carrot has been my only salvation from the stick of burning the midnight oil. The question is, if your nightcap has to obliterate the pain of coming home from work at 2am, how do you balance rewarding flavour with a method even an exhausted zombie can shake? Enter the Amante Piquant.

The first appeal of this drink is the base spirit Tequila which, due to my live-in cocktail taster's mortal aversion to the stuff, is strictly black-ops and a bit of a guilty pleasure for me. The second appeal is how the simplicity of the drink belies its incredible flavour. It may be a chop of this and a muddle of that but essentially it's a cinch to make and the green tabasco and lime will happily slap your tastebuds into submission and make you smile like a loon. In fact after one of these I guarantee a 110% improvement on any evening. Which isn't bad for a handful of coriander and a bit of lime.

You'll need:

• 50ml agave tequila
• 25ml lime juice
• 2 slices of cucumber (extra for garnish)
• 2 dashes Green Tabasco Sauce
• 1 squeeze of agave nectar
• 1 sprig of coriander

Make it:

• Muddle the coriander and cucumber in the base of a shaker with the lime, agave and tequila
• Add a handful of ice and a couple of dashes of tabasco
• Shake for 10-15 seconds
• Strain into a coupe glass
• Garnish with a slice of cucumber

The boy and his poison: The GC&T

I love those occasions when an unexpected but simple twist on a familiar favourite results in something incredible. I found myself doing a bit of impromptu hosting on Saturday with the unannounced arrival of my brother and an entourage of people expecting to have a 'night out'. As you can imagine, the last thing I expected was to come home at some point Sunday-morning enthusing about a tiny twist on the classic G&T. Seeking stomach lining we piled into a burger joint where the waitress managed to convince us that they'd found the best gin and tonic recipe in London. Sceptical (in part due to being surrounded by the sibling's testosterone fuelled man-party) I ordered a round.

I'd like to claim that the next four rounds I ordered were also due to scepticism but, with apologies to my liver, it was because they were some of the finest gin and tonics I've had this year. Like The London Gin Club, the bar staff at Honest Burger have concluded that gin and tonic needn't be just a dull staple and by accentuating their chosen gin with a complementary flavour they've elevated a simple drink into to an altogether more smile-inducing affair. With a base of Hendrick's, the glass was lined with fresh strips of hand-peeled cucumber, exposing a greater surface area of the cucumber to infuse even more fresh flavour into the drink. Use the recipe below for a starter and, once you've been bowled over by adding flavour to your G&T, try out some of the other suggested flavour pairings below. Better still, share the ones that work for you. I'd be particularly interested if someone can pair something with Tesco's Value Gin, other than regret and memory loss.

You'll need:

• Cucumber
• 50ml Hendrick's gin
• Ice
• Fever Tree tonic

Make it

• Slice your cucumber into thirds lengthways
• Using a peeler slowly slice wafer thin strips out of the cucumber portions
• Line a small tumbler with the strips covering the glass
• Drop in a handful of crushed ice followed by the gin and top up with tonic
• Drop a straw in and let it steep for a minute or so

Other flavour pairings to try (courtesy of the London Gin Club):

• Tanqueray with orange and watercress
• Tanqueray Rangpur with olive and basil (make sure the olives are in brine)
• Gilpins with lemon and sage
• Sacred with grapefruit and rosemary
• Bloom with strawberry

The boy and his poison: 'A suitcase stuffed with sneezes'

This boy is opting for a different poison this week and served to you in a really unique way. We've had cycling bars, popup hotels, shops and gin carriages but I've managed to find a really interesting modern take on an old habit with Reginald Spleen's Travelling Snuff Bar.

At the ripe old age of 500, it is by no means a novel pursuit. Snuff is essentially pulverised dried tobacco leaves that you take a pinch of then sniff into your nose. It's certainly a classy habit with a bit of pedigree as well. In the 19th century it was the denizens who were left to miserably chug away on their cigarettes while this stuff was the nicotine fix of choice for royalty and aristocracy. By way of a disclaimer, it is tobacco and therefore not without its associated risks, but snuff is smokeless and thus presents a far lesser risk to your health than cigarettes. It also won't bother anyone else (no chance of passive snuffing) and unlike smoking you can merrily try it whilst relaxing in the comfort of the inside of a bar or pub which is no bad thing with winter approaching. However, you may at this point be asking why you'd want to shovel pinches of dried tobacco up your nose and this is where Reginald Spleen and his contemporary snuff bar comes in. It's quite a fun thing to try and a great talking point with the wealth of different flavours offered ranging from whisky and bucks fizz to chocolate orange and G&T.

Reginald Spleen's bar isn't a bar in the traditional four-walls sense but instead a portable set up that can be booked from £95 to give the guests at your next event a nicotine fuelled blast of a time. That will get you Reginald and his suitcase to help guide you through the 43 different types of snuff they offer, but if you fancy a cheaper hassle-free alternative you can also get 18 flavours with a decision dice and a flavour guide couriered to you for only £75.

If like me you're just a bit curious and want to try a few flavours you can even buy them from their site for £3 a tin. Purely in the interest of journalistic integrity I've been happily huffing up the gin and tonic snuff as well as the chocolate orange flavour (which they were good enough to drop in to the envelope as an apology for being a day late with delivery… that's how you do customer service) for the last week. Definitely not an everyday thing, but as an unusual treat you can't beat it.

The boy and his poison: The Basil Mojito

This drink falls in the category of accidental yet delicious discoveries. I'm not lucky enough to have a garden and growing herbs in a window box for me would entail finding some sort of city-proof fauna which live solely off of streetlight and exhaust fumes. The downside of this is that I end up buying huge packets of supermarket herbs, the upside is that the left-overs tend to end up in either drink recipes or syrups.

This weekend a pile of basil was glaring guiltily at me from the kitchen as it started to blacken. The sun was out so a refreshing bit of cocktail innovation seemed a good idea. I took the principles of a mojito and gave it a basil and vodka twist.

You'll need:

• 50ml Vodka
• 25ml Lime juice
• A squeeze of honey or agave nectar
• A handful of basil
• Sparkling water to top up

Make it 

• Roughly chop the basil
• Muddle the basil with the vodka, lime and honey
• Add lots of crushed ice
• Top up with sparkling water

The boy and his poison: The Brighton Rock

This was an irresistible drink conceit to end my contribution to Sussex Week on. I initially toyed with the idea of working up a variation on a 40s classic cocktail to celebrate the book but as a child the overriding memory of Brighton I have is walking away, decaying my teeth slowly on a minty stick of rock. That said, rather than take the easy route of popping out and buying a bottle of Crème De Menthe to play with, I decided to pursue an adult twist on the flavour of mint and what could be more adult than infused spirits.

So bottle of gin in one hand and fresh mint in the other, I set about making a Brighton Rock. The fundamental principles of infusion open up a wealth of possibilities for experimentation. In this case I took Hendricks (an already cucumber strong gin) and let a packet of mint steep in it for two days, but the beauty of the method is that its just as simple to experiment with a multitude of combinations.

For the mint infused gin you'll need

• 150ml of gin or Vodka
• Two large stems of mint leaves

Make it

• Pour your gin into an airtight jar (an old jam jar will do)
• Wash and add the mint leaves, 
• Push down so the gin covers the mint
• Seal and store for a few days in a cool dark place
• Remove the mint and move the jar to the freezer

For the Brighton Rock you'll need

• 100ml mint infused chilled gin
• The juice of half a lime
• A dash of elderflower cordial
• Mint leaf to decorate

Make it

• Add the ingredients to the base of a cocktail shaker
• Stir until combined
• Strain into a cocktail glass
• Garnish with a mint leaf

The boy and his poison: The Sussex Sparkler

I won't lie to you, initially this seemed to be the assignment from hell. "We're doing a Sussex week" they say. "Fantasic… Sussex is lovely!" I responded. Cue my internal monologue screaming 'what cocktails ever came out of Sussex, why do we never do a Cognac week, or a Venice week… or better still a tiki-themed Polynesian week?'.

It turns out I was doing Sussex a massive disservice. As well as its incredible selection of beers (which, incidentally, I may or may not have tried 'a lot of' to decide on a decent cocktail recipe) the county is also responsible for Bluebell Vineyard Estates and their incredible sparkling Hindleap. You can grab it from your local Oddbins or a number of other retailers…  and so you should. I was tempted to adapt a champagne and lavender cocktail I'd read about but finding fresh lavender can be a nightmare so cue a touch of experimentation. The freshness of the Bluebell Hindleap would be perfectly complimented by thyme, and whilst it's easy to make a thyme syrup, it's even easier to make one out of elderflower cordial. A touch of vodka to bring the drink up to adult levels of fun and you're done.

For the thyme and elderflower syrup:

• 200ml of elderflower cordial
• 4 sprigs of thyme

Make it:

• Bring all the ingredients to the boil
• Allow to cool for 10 minutes
• Pull out the thyme sprigs

For the cocktail you'll need:

• A bottle of chilled Bluebell Hindleap (or Prosecco)
• 50ml of elderflower and thyme syrup
• 25ml of vodka
• 1 sprig of thyme to garnish

Make it:

• Add the syrup and vodka to a champagne flute
• Stir to mix
• Top up with the sparkling wine
• Garnish with a sprig of thyme

The Boy and his Poison: The Innocent Slut

There comes a time when even the most dedicated lush pines for something a little more hydrating and restorative than a Bloody Mary or a Corpse Reviver. Something refreshing, full of fruit, anti-oxidants and all those things that populate the lives of healthy clean-living people.

You could head to a juice bar to get your fix but why leave your house (and a small fortune at the till) when you could make your own at home. The Innocent Slut combines all my favourite flavours from a juice; the zing of passion fruit, tang of grapefruit (don't worry, freshly squeezed grapefruit is a world away from the sour nastiness of the concentrated stuff) sweetness from the apple and the warming wholesome sensation of ginger. It's just the ticket when you need a non-alcoholic pick me up.

You'll need (per person)

• 1 passion fruit
• 1 pink grapefruit
• 100ml of cloudy apple juice
• A thumb sized piece of ginger

Make it

• Halve and squeeze your grapefruit into a sieve over a blender
• Press the pulp through the sieve
• Scoop the passion fruit into the blender
• Wash and peel your ginger then grate it into the blender using a microplane grater
• Pour your apple juice over the mixture and chuck in a couple of ice cubes
• Pulse the blender a couple of times then leave it on a fast blend for 10 seconds
• Pour into a glass and drink that health in

Domestic Sluttery's Go-to Glassware Guide

Consider this your definitive cocktail glass primer. If ever you're wondering what a particular vintage glass is for or you're just bored of serving up a mojito in an NYC mug red wine glass, then you need Domestic Sluttery's go-to Glassware Guide.

Each glass has a different purpose, they're not just for looking pretty on your shelf. Some keep your booze concoction cool, some allow bubbles to fizz, some even let the ice melt evenly. If you put a bucks fizz in an old fashioned glass, you're going to have flat and warm fizz before you're even halfway through your tipple. This guide solve all of your glassware dilemmas, so you can just get on with enjoying your booze.

1. The Beer Mug
Fantastic for Shakey Petes, micheladas and hearty Bloody Marys. They'll hold about 500ml and you should keep a couple in the freezer.

2. The Brandy Snifter
A distended bowl, short stem, great for a cheeky Sazerac, some calvados or even a burnt brandy.

3. Champagne Coupe (or saucer)
Let's get this out of the way right now, the myth I'm hanging on to is that its based loosely on the bosom of Marie Antoinette. Made infamous by Babycham, the wide circumference actually makes it pretty useless at holding bubbles but aesthetically it is my cocktail glass of choice and equally perfect for sours and Daiquiris.

4. Champagne flute
Gloriously self-explanatory and beautifully iconic, this European and in my opinion preferred glass for sparkling wine keeps a narrow opening allowing the drink to maintain its fizz. That's right… fizzier Bucks Fizz, and sparklier Airmails for longer.

5. Collins/Highball Glass
Perfect for a Tom Collins, Mojito, Mai Tai or any cooler, this narrow tall glass is an essential (if, unlike me, you have more than a shelf for your barware).

6. Jam Jar
I know certain people may chastise me for this, the jam jar is an incredibly versatile bit of cheap glassware for your collection. Part shaker, and even sometimes part cup if you're at a loss when you're on holiday or out of your comfort zone, it's a really easy way of shaking up a great cocktail.

7. Julep Cup
Always go for stainless steel if you can, this is a fairly unique example of where the vessel can make a traditional julep that little bit more special. Fill it with ice, poke a mint sprig in the top and take on the best cosmopolitan bars.

8. Margarita Glass
Let's not make any pretensions here this glass is for fun. For 'Prince Harry naked billiard' fun. Fill it with a lemongrass and chilli margarita or freeze/blend your way to frozen tequila bliss.

9. Martini Glass
There are two types of martini glasses. First is the enormous 'we're going to head to alcoholism' type of martini (they're about about 200ml and this drink will usually have some sort of fruit in, like the porn star martini) and the delicate 'sure I can have three of these at lunch, they're tiny' types of martini (they'll take about 100ml). By and large, when I talk about martini glasses and measurements I'm talking about the latter.

10. Old fashioned glass
If Don Draper did glassware, he'd do this. Perfect for Sazerac's, Old Fashioneds and anything that needs a good bashing/muddling/sitting-in-ice.

11. Pony glass
I've still never got round to buying any of these, but wow I wish I had a liqueur cabinet to justify a set. If you have some sloe gin or cherry brandy to hand, this is the one for you.

12. Punch cup
Ideal for a glass of Nicola 6 or the famous (and dangerous) Sluttery Pitcher, they're an amazing kitsch addition for the entertaining hosts amongst you.

13. Shot Glass
Grab a bar spoon, layer up those cocktails and let the fun begin. This glass is sturdy and equally adept at holding a slug of tequila as it is sharing a Crack Baby.

The Boy and his Poison: Oh Gosh!

This year’s Summer is like an elusive party guest who only decides to make an appearance when everyone has given up all hope of them showing. July morphed into August with no real sign of seasonal-progress and my collection of delicious aperitifs, sundowners and punches started to look as inappropriate as my legs did in shorts when they eventually came out last weekend. However, arrive it eventually did… so put that sloe gin making on hold, break out the rum and let’s have some fun before the clouds conspire to ruin it again.

I stumbled on this drink in Vauxhall’s Brunswick House Café (well worth a visit when passing through London, if only to explore the Aladdin’s Cave of reclaimed antique furniture and paraphernalia) feet-up, gently crisping in the sun, rum seemed the only thing for it, and what better than with a bit of lime and sweetness. I love the cocktail’s etymology which apparently stems from the first drinker exclaiming “Oh Gosh!”

You’ll need:

• 50ml White rum (that’s right, the delicious cheap stuff)
• 25ml Triple sec or Cointreau
• 12ml Lime juice
• 12ml Sugar syrup (or a squeeze of honey/agave)

Shake it:

• Pour all the ingredients into an ice filled shaker
• Shake till chilled
• Strain into a small ice filled tumbler