The Boy and his Poison: The Sluttery Mincepie Martini

With only a few days left I wanted to pull out the festive stops for the last drink. Egg nog has been covered very well, there were a few punch recipes I toyed with and a few cocktails from the Colebrooke Row festive roundup but they just didn't quite meet the Griswold level of extreme-xmas-fetishism I was aiming for.

You were ten minutes away from hearing about a very nice Port Cobbler when I suddenly noticed an unopened jar of mincemeat and tempting bottle of Chase vodka*. One sterilized jam jar later I was patiently waiting for my mincemeat to infuse its yuletide magic on the vodka (great minds think alike). I gave it about two days then all that was left was to add a few different bitters to enhance the flavour and a touch of vermouth to round things off.

For the Mincepie vodka:
The rough rule I developed was a level dessert spoon of mincemeat for every 100ml of vodka in a jar. For a whole jam-jar of the stuff i'd recommend about three decent desert spoons of mincemeat.  Give it a hefty shake and leave it somewhere cool for 48 hours. When you're ready to use it strain it through muslin, unfortunately a simple bar strainer won't keep all those distilled bits of suet out and your drink will look wonderful as a result of this small step. You can then happily dump your soused remnants on some ice cream and marvel at your clear golden liquid which smells like the sort of rocket fuel that Santa would use.

You'll need:

• 50ml Mincemeat infused vodka
• 10ml Vermouth
• 1 dash orange bitters
• 1 dash Angostura bitters
• Orange peel
• Maraschino cherry to garnish. This will probably be the only time I ever recommend bringing those maraschino infused relics out of the cocktail cabinet but 'tis the season for it.

Then shake

• Add the ingredients to an ice filled shaker
• Shake vigourously for a minute
• Strain into an ice cold coupe glass
• Spray the zest of some orange peel over the top
• Garnish with the cherry

* It was found buried at the back of a cupboard and may potentially have been a designated Christmas present, I've yet to admit opening it.