The Boy and his Poison: The Desperate Measure

This week I'm part travel correspondent and part bon vivant. Stuck in a parochial bolt hole in North Devon, when the sun went down there was little else to do other than find innovative ways of exhausting the remnants of our host's decrepit drinks cabinet.

Two tired limes, a bottle of cognac (which looked like it had blessed more Christmas days than me) and the usual bits and pieces that you find in a holiday cottage initially left me stumped. Until I figured out the 'Desperate Measure'.

You'll need:

• 50ml Cognac
• 25ml lime
• 20ml sugar syrup (a few spoons of sugar in double the amount of water) 
• 1 Egg White

Make it:

• Add all the ingredients to a shaker 
• Dry shake until mixed
• Add a handful of ice
• Shake until chilled
• Strain into a coupe or martini glass

The Boy and his Poison: Ma Smith's Sloe Gin

You may remember that in my Wibble recipe last Friday, I mentioned how my parents' sloe gin habit was one of the few redeeming features of our annual soirees. This year, in the pursuit of divining the finest recipes for Domestic Sluttery I finally got them to divulge their home-brew secrets in exchange for three days of cooking and washing up.

Sure, you could just pop down to the shops and pick up a bottle of Gordon's or even Chase Sloe Gin. However if you're within walkable distance of these delicious, accessible and very British berries (which will be pickable in the next few weeks) it's a great way to enhance an otherwise pedestrian bottle of gin and better still, there's nothing like making your own liqueur as an excuse for a walk in the country.

You'll need

• An empty litre or 70cl glass bottle
• The results of a good day's sloe picking which means enough Sloes to fill 1/3 of a 70cl gin bottle.
• 70cl of gin (everything displaced can be easily absorbed in one of our gin recipes)
• 2 tbsp of sugar

Make it

• Pick and freeze your sloe berries for a day. This helps to burst their skins and also means you can preserve them till when you're prepared for the next stage.
• Sterilise your bottle
• Fill it 1/3 full of your sloe berries
• Top up with your gin 
• Add 2 tsbp of sugar
• Leave in a dark place for 3-4 months
• Strain through muslin into a bottle until ready to use.

Delicious sloe photo courtesy of Kat…

The boy and his poison: The Wibble

August marks the annual Summer family pilgrimage to smile, patiently nod, endure overly charred barbecue food and fend off the usual grandchildren/marriage/house related questions they always taunt me with. However, it also marks the yearly handing over of the family sloe gin.

Since my folks moved to the South West they've taken to all sorts of cliched outdoor pursuits but by far the most intriguing is sloe picking and sloe gin making. There's so much to do with the drink but my personal favourite cocktail to let it shine is the Wibble… how can you not to love a cocktail designed to 'make you wobble but not fall down'. Grapefruit and blackberries fight out the sugar and sour, with the sloes giving it that undefinable flavour that makes it so moreish.   So grab yourself a bottle of sloe gin and some grapefruit juice and get Wibbling.

You'll need: 

• 25ml gin 
• 25ml sloe gin 
• 25ml grapefruit juice 
• 10ml fresh lemon juice
• 10ml Cassis/Chambord 
• Orange twist  

Make it: 

• Add all your ingredients to an ice filled shaker 
• Shake till chilled 
• Strain into a martini or coupe glass 
• Garnish with an orange twist

The Boy and his Poison: The Mobile Lush

I'm constantly envious of the travel finds of my friends and colleagues. Whether it's a previously undiscovered bolt-hole or a divine but affordable foreign destination, the Sluttery gang are my location scouts of choice. The only problem is that once they blog about their finds the rooms tend to disappear quicker than Olympic tickets, leaving disorganised misanthropes like me trying to make the best of a cobbled together staycation.

So this year, to alleviate the potential misery of autumn rain, traffic-jams and train journeys I set about looking for equipment to mobilise my cocktail making and enhance even the dullest of travels.

Collapsible shot glass and hip flask
First of my finds was a compact but beautifully formed collapsible shot glass and hip flask combo. Fill up the flask with your liquor of choice (in my case gin, a dash of vermouth and some orange bitters) dump it in your freezer for a couple of hours before you head off to your railway station or your partner-chauffered car and relax as your journey becomes infinitely more enjoyable. (£12.94)

Cocktail Bitters Traveler’s Set
Bitters are an incredible way of enhancing so many different spirits and form the backbone of many of my favourite cocktails. Sian's already featured this travel bitters kit (and I'm a little bitter about it) but a travelling booze set would be all the poorer without giving it another mention. (£17.94)

Bartenders Choice App
Admittedly you don't want to lug around a cocktail book for your holiday reading so putting this fantastic app on your phone before you head off is a great way of having access to hundreds of recipes sorted by spirit and style of drink. (£1.99)

Cocktail Travel Kit (pictured above)
Ok, this one may be a little excessive but I imagine it would be an ideal set on a stay-away somewhere. With a shaker, mixing stick, two size measuring cup, cocktail strainer, ice bucket and ice tongs it even has a shoulder strap should the need take you to go cocktail-hiking. (£75)

Funkin Mixer pouches
Usually I'm no fan of pre-made mixes to add to drinks, but for what they are these taste great. The fact you can just throw a bunch of them in a suitcase and have instant classics at the squeeze of a pouch and a quick stir makes them perfect for cheering up even the longest of train journeys. (From £5.38)

Thermos Flask
It keeps things hot, and it keeps gin cold. Its a humble bit of equipment, but fill it full of ice cold gin or vodka from your freezer before you go and you'll have perfectly chilled G&Ts on your walks and picnics. Be careful though, as you won't be needing ice they'll pack far more of a punch. (£6.99)

Do drink and travel responsibly. Train gins are great, motorway mojitos are not.

The boy and his poison: The British Orchard

Between the nail-biting stress-relief drinking, and the 'wow we just won gold' celebratory drinking, I've endured a fair few Olympic hangovers this week (yep, that's right LOCOG, Olympic hangovers). So being an anxiety-ridden bon vivant with another week of this to go I set about finding a solution and it came in the form of a 'British Orchard'.

A little like a cider spritzer, the sparkling water lifts the cider into a really light and summery drink with the slug of elderflower cordial enhancing the flavour of the cider and giving the drink another dimension entirely. A squeeze of lime for tartness and if you're lucky enough to have a bit of mint lurking around your garden, garnish with a few leaves and you'll be able to drink through till the end of the beach volleyball and still wake up the next day feeling fresh as a daisy*.

*Daisy freshness not guaranteed

You'll need

• A bottle of good quality Scrumpy
• Sparkling water 
• A dash of elderflower cordial
• A squeeze of lime juice
• Mint to garnish

Make it

• Fill a tumbler with ice and pour the scrumpy over it till its 1/3 full
• Add your elderflower cordial and lime then stir a couple of times
• Top up with sparkling water
• Pinch some mint leaves and drop on top of the drink

The boy and his poison: The Berlioni

Cynar is a contrary mistress. Falling very much in to the 'Marmite' category of bitter liqueurs, on first sip you'll either be in love or wondering how such an innocuous looking tipple could do that to your mouth. I first found it lurking on the back shelf of a bar last year at 'that' point in the evening when trying something obscure seems like the best idea in the world, incidentally if ever you're out drinking with me that's the time to make your exit.

I'll save you the embarrassment I faced the first time I tried to pronounce the name of this delicious artichoke based liqueur… it's 'chee-nar'. A bona fide all rounder, both a delicious aperitif and because of the artichoke a lovely digestive too. It belongs to the same 'Amaros' family as Aperol and Campari, so if you're looking to lose your Cynar virginity, rather than going for it on the rocks I recommend starting with a fabulous negroni variant called a Berlioni.

You'll need

• 50ml Cynar
• 50ml vermouth (I like to go sweet for this one to take the edge off the bitterness)
• 50ml gin
• Orange strip to garnish

Make it:

• Pour all the ingredients over ice into a small tumbler
• Stir for 10 seconds
• Pinch the orange over the top of the glass, wipe around the rim and drop it in the glass

The Boy and his Poison: Mrs. Lilien's Cocktail Swatch Book

Setting the world to rights one lunchtime it suddenly dawned on me that what the world really needed was a cocktail guide and preferably one in the form of a swatch book. Colour coded, well designed and bound just like those classic Pantone swatch books. I was one phone call away from pestering a publisher before I found Mrs Lilen's Cocktail swatch book.

I'm usually seriously disgruntled when I find one of my ideas 'proto-plagiarised' but this one has been done so elegantly and at such a steal (its only £6) that I couldn't help recommend it. Kelley Lilien is an enviably talented designer that hacked together 20 recipes for blended cocktails, 20 recipes for shaken cocktails, and 10 recipes for punch bowls all in a perfect swatch book ready to be fanned out at a moments notice. If you have a cocktail-lover in your life it's a perfect gift and I was sold when I read about the incredible sounding Senorita Spin Beer-rita. Chuck it in your basket next time you make an Amazon order, trust me, your Olympic BBQ guests will thank you.

You can pick up Mrs. Lilien’s Cocktail Swatchbook from Amazon for £6

The Boy and his Poison: Top Ten Summer Cocktails

There was once a mythical season. A season renowned for its apathy busting light and smile inducing warmth, its absence of clouds, azure-hued skies and most notably its total lack of sheet-rain, flooding and gales. Some of you may be old enough to remember summer, thanks to a considerable gin habit my memories are a little fuzzy but even I have a vague recollection of ice cream, sun bathing and pints of G&T.

Well, don't blink people. Summer's making a guest appearance for one week only and if anyone deserves it, it's you. Having endured three-months of 'springtum' it's your duty to make the most of the next few days and I can think of no finer way to celebrate the arrival of the sun than with these sun-downer suggestions. Get the ice in the freezer, burn some undercooked meat on the bbq and shake up something tasty.

Ginger Brew
You don't have to follow this to the letter, in essence it's a dirty turbo shandy and if you want to make a nice malty beer go further just split it with a decent ginger beer.

Floradora
Fresh spicy, easy to scale up. This one is a crowd pleaser and a cinch to make.

Aperol Spritz
Quintessentially summer in a glass. Order one out and then try to resist picking up a bottle of Aperol to make your own. Don't judge me but I've always found this tastes like an amazing alcoholic-tizer.

Margarita
Make it straight or blend it over ice for that truly summer touch.

Sangrita
If you have some left over tequila from that margarita, this non-alcoholic shot is perfect to sip it with.

Sangria
It's not chavvy if done properly. Sian's done it properly, spiked with brandy and full of fruit just looking at her picture is making me thirsty

Stonewall
Spicy from the ginger, silky smooth from the apple. Summer in a cup.

Daiquiri
Frozen, strawberry, banana? If you can buy it, you can add rum and sugar to it. Although the absence of a Hemmingway recipe has definitely given me inspiration for a future post.

Hard Lemonade
If in doubt, vodka it up. Still lemonade always reminds me of summer, so to giving it an adult twist only improves a great drink.

Michelada
If ever I had a plight it would be to make sure the michelada has a bigger audience. It isn't quite a cocktail, more a 'beer+'…full of spices and flavours that are equally perfect for a summer evening as they are for destroying a hangover.

The Boy and his Poison: The Dark Knight

I'm going to level with you all, I'm fairly tense right now. In approximately 30 minutes I will be giving Anne Hathaway the opportunity to usurp the object of my adolescent dreams. Sure, I'll also be excitedly drinking in the final installment of Chris Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy (and more importantly hoping no one's noticed I've skipped out of work early) but the key thing is whether tonight I'll have to write a letter to Michelle Pfieffer to explain why, with regret, she has been relegated to my backup Catwoman.

I'm no comic book junkie but even I'm excited about this particular summer blockbuster and with so many different angles to explore it felt like a great start for a cocktail. There's the feline route, perhaps the sort of drinks I'm sure Bruce Wayne would go for, or maybe even the cliched 'bat' avenue. I eschewed all those in favour of making our own Dark Knight cocktail (preferably without having to go out and buy black vodka). A bit of research, some blue curacao and a dash of Chambord later I found a recipe as dark as our hero but with the taste of blue-raspberry slush puppies.

You'll need:

• 50ml vodka, you won't taste it so feel free to go cheap
• 25ml blue curacao
• 25ml Chambord (or Cassis) 
• Blueberries to garnish

Make it

• Shake the ingredients over ice till chilled
• Strain into a martini or coupe glass
• Garnish with either blackberries or blueberries

The Boy and his Poison: Bubble Tea

Bubble tea (or Boba) is essentially and superbly-enhanced iced tea. It could be based with everything from fruit flavoured black tea to milk based green tea but it has the addition of a clutch of incredible sweetened tapioca pearls. It's these pearls which give the drink its name and its defining feature. Once you've boiled and sweetened the tapioca it turns into wonderfully viscous spheres that sweeten the tea as they pop up your straw a little like tea-flavoured gummy bears peppering every other sip.

It's an absolute breeze to make as well if you don't fancy trekking to a specialist bubble tea cafe. All you need is some pearls and, if you want the full experience, an extra wide straw. Once you have those essentials it's all a matter of finding your favourite flavour. I've gone for matcha green tea with milk in my recipe below but I've given you a few starting points for experimentation if that's not your thing.

You can pick up the tea and the straws in oriental food shops. I have a bit of a thing for Teapig's matcha green tea as well. Give that a go.

Prepare a sugar syrup:
You don't have to be too precise but it should be roughly equal parts sugar and water

• Add 250g of sugar into a pan
• Pour 250ml of water over it
• Gently heat till dissolved
• Pour into a jar

For the pearls:
Instructions vary so double check the back of your packet. For the ones I bought the method was as follows:

• Boil your water in a small pan (about 500ml for a handful)
• Add the pearls and gently stir until they begin to float
• Reduce the heat to medium and put a lid on the pan for 5 minutes
• Drain the pan into colander and rinse the pearls in cold water until they have become cool enough to handle
• Add them to your jar of syrup and pop them up into a fridge until you're ready to use them

For the tea:
You have a wealth of options here. My favourite is matcha green tea which just needs to be mixed with some hot water, diluted with milk, sweetened with agave or honey and chilled by shaking with ice. You could also make black tea using a normal tea bag and then flavour it with a tablespoon of jam (peach works really well) shake until mixed and then shake with ice to chill.

Then make:

• Using a teaspoon, take as many pearls as you want from your jar (I'd go for a couple of layers in the base of your glass)
• Pour over your tea
• Stick in one of your extra large bubble tea straws
• Suck away. Shhhhlurrrrp.

The Boy and his Poison: The Crack Baby

I definitely haven't done enough shooters for you thirsty people. I have a love-hate relationship with the little blighters. On one hand they're always fun and can be an interesting way of trying out flavours (or textures, incidentally do not ever consume that drink, it's a thing of evil) on the other, you wouldn't exactly describe them as a sophisticated genre. I mean I like a flat liner as much as the next man but it's hardly the first thing you think of as a relaxing post-work libation. 

The Crack Baby is a wonderful little exception to the rule of sophistication. The passion fruit and Chambord allude to those moreish fruit salad sweets, but the champagne and vodka are there to reassure you it's a grown up drink. Equally adept at setting a night up as it is concluding one and with a recipe that consists of equal parts of each of the ingredients it's a doddle to remember too.

For each shot*

• 25ml vodka
• 25ml passion fruit juice
• 25ml prosecco/cava/champagne
• A dash of Chambord or cassis - no more than half a teaspoon

*You're making more than one right?


Make it

• Pour the ingredients into a shaker filled with ice
• Stir until chilled
• Strain into your shot glasses

The Boy and his Poison: Booze Cubes

"Simplicity itself" was the slightly slurred conclusion I managed to get out on Friday night when a friend told me about this tip. It's definitely not the sort of arrangement you'd want to admit to having on a regular basis but if you're strapped for fridge space (like I am in my shoebox kitchen) or for impromptu summer parties (if we ever have a summer) it's utter genius.

The idea is simple. You take the problem of how to chill a drink without diluting it and then in a nifty paradigm shift you make the problem into a cute solution. That's right, I'm talking frozen cubes of white wine and rose, or for the more adventurous, frozen espresso cubes for impromptu espresso martinis. All you need is a silicone ice tray and the least boozy element of your drink of choice and you're in business. Then when you want to serve your perfectly chilled wine, simply drop one of cubes in the glass and stir.

Its also a really practical way of storing accessible wine for cooking if for some reason you don't want to demolish the rest of the bottle. Simply make a batch of red and white and you'll never be stuck for that drop of chianti to pick up your ragu or that essential slug of pinot for your risotto.

The Boy and his Poison: Drink Deck

Divining a city's hotspots from it's dive bars is practically a full-time occupation, or in my case a hangover inducing extracurricular hobby peppered with expensive mistakes. Sure we have Twitter, and there are plenty of websites and guides out there to help us, but if only there was some sort of curated list of great speakeasies and gin-joints that rewarded you for being adventurous. Better still, imagine if its coverage was international and it came in the form of a cute deck of cards that you could buy or give to others.

Annoyingly whilst I was envisaging this perfect bar guide over my third martini, Drink Deck went ahead and made it. Actually they didn't just make it, they realised it in app form (i.e. less misplaceable) and came up with the pithy pitch of it being an ingenius deck of cards that combines 'savings, urban exploration and great recommendations'. They span London, Chicago, Portland and New Orleans, each pack sells for £20 and features fifty-two bars with a unique discount on each card that is applied after you've spent £20/$30. Whilst using it as an excuse to take a Portland vacation might border on the lavish, the cards don't expire so it should make the perfect gift for a city visit or the 'difficult-to-buy-for' significant other in your life. Incidentally, I'm not dropping any hints. If you can hear the sound of a hint being dropped I promise, its not me.

Pick up the deck here for £19.15
Or the app here for £19.99 (save those trees and the P&P)

The boy and his poison: The Apple Pie Flip

Howdy. With the fourth of July looming on the horizon I can't think of a more deserving cause for liquid celebration than the country that brought us the Old Fashioned, crack pie, and the $666 Douchebag Burger (small change really unless you intend to finish it off with a $1k sundae).

I mooted the idea of peanut butter and jelly shooters, the Hershey Highway (admittedly that one didn't get much further than snorting at the name) and even cheeseburger-infused vodka was tempting but it was the suggestion of exploring an apple pie flavoured cocktail that caught my eye. Bourbon (or better still rye) seemed the most quintessentially American liquor to base it on, but a few initial attempts at just blending it with the flavours of apple pie (apple, vanilla and cinnamon) left the drink wanting. However with the addition of one simple egg white, the cocktail instantly became smoother, richer and altogether more indulgent. So without further ado I present the Apple Pie Flip.

You'll need

• 50ml bourbon or rye (try and find Makers Mark or Woodford. Jack Daniels is a great drink for cola but it will overpower the apple in this drink)
• 50ml apple juice
• 25ml lime
• 20ml simple syrup (or a desert spoon of honey/agave)
• 1 pinch of cinnamon
• 1 egg white
• A dash of vanilla extract
• Half a small apple to garnish

Make it

• Add all the ingredients to a shaker
• Dry shake a couple of times to blend
• Add ice to the shaker
• Shake for a further 10 seconds to chill the drink
• Strain into a martini or coupe glass
• Garnish with fine slices of apple and a dusting of cinnamon on the frothy top.

For the garnish

• Halve your apple lengthways
• Finely slice the apple with a pairing knife
• Pierce the apple with a cocktail stick and fan out the slices (yes, a slice of apple will work as well, you philistine)

The boy and his poison: Hard Lemonade

The sun was out! Admittedly with the accompanying humidity it's been a little like spending the day in a giant armpit, but even a hint of summer deserves liquid-celebration. I'd compare this drink to  'still-lemonade' on crack, I stumbled on it at the Pitt Cue BBQ Trailer which last week returned to the London Southbank for another three-month stint of improving the life of Waterloo commuters with cocktails and delicious takeaway pulled pork.

In essence it's lemonade enhanced with a slug of gin but there are a couple of flourishes to that basic recipe that make it far more than just a booze and mixer affair. By the time you've added the bitters and elderflower it becomes a smooth moreish cocktail that after one sip will have you making it by the litre to accompany all those messy Saturday afternoon BBQs on the horizon.

You'll need:

• Still lemonade (either make your own or pick some up at the supermarket)
• 50ml gin
• 1 tsp elderflower cordial
• 2 dash orange bitters
• 1 dash Angostura bitters
• lemon slices to garnish

Make it:

• Fill a small tumbler with ice
• Pour in the gin then lemonade
• Add the elderflower and bitters
• Then stir and serve with a few slices of lemon

The boy and his poison: Hendrick's Gin Sorbet

Here's some life advice for you: don't shop online when you're drunk. Don't even entertain the idea. While I slowly passed out on Thursday night after an evening of vodka tasting (2-week home distilled Ukrainian vodka isn't a mid-week lifestyle choice I'd recommend) I was feeling pretty smug at the achievement of doing my weekly grocery shop and managing to eat leftovers simultaneously. Fast forward to Saturday morning and me surveying the shopping whims of a drunk-idiot-savant. However, there is a silver lining to this gloomy cloud.

One of my ill-conceived purchases was a job lot of cucumbers, sadly no BOGOF offer, no coupon, I'd just evidently decided the website probably wouldn’t have understood my initial click so I decided to keep hammering the mouse regardless... so what to do? Make a ton of tzatziki, distribute cucumber sandwiches to all my neighbours? It all seemed a bit of a wasted opportunity, especially when I’d seen a recipe for pimms jelly with cucumber sorbet earlier in the week. I’m not a massive jelly fan and I felt the sorbet could try that little bit harder, which was when I noticed alcohol could be used instead of an egg white to stop it setting solid. So I made the decision to reform my idiotic drunk shopping choices into gin sorbet, wrong and delicious on every level.

You'll need:

• 180g Sugar
• 25g Squeezable glucose (easy to pick up in good supermarket baking sections, promise)
• 200ml Water
• 100ml Hendrick's Gin
• A cucumber
• Juice of 1.5 Limes
• Handful of mint leaves

Make it:

1. Bring the sugar, water, glucose, and mint to the boil
2. Add the lime, stir till mixed and take off the heat
3. While the syrup is cooling blend the cucumber with a hand blender or better still pass it through a juicer. 
4. Allow the syrup to cool by either letting it rest for a few hours or popping it straight in the fridge
5. When cooled add the syrup and gin to the cucumber and blend again with a hand blender
6. Pass through a sieve into a resealable container ( I added a bit of the pulp for colour)
7. Place in the freezer and stir every hour or so to break apart the ice crystals (if you're lucky enough to have an ice cream maker, feel free to drop the mixture straight in it and let it do the hard work for you)
8. Serve it with a sprig of mint and some tart summer fruit, or put your feet up and spoon it straight out of the tub.

The boy and his poison: The Brandy Crusta

There are times when a book should never be judged by its cover... especially when the book is a delicious sugar-rimmed cocktail  full of flavour but lumbered with the word 'crust' in its title. I have no idea how this drink's unattractive name was conceived but letting it stop you try it is bordering on criminal.

There's so much to discuss about this cocktail. I could go on about the versatility of the recipe, after all it isn't just good with brandy, it works equally as well with bourbon and gin.  I could even bore you at length about the drink's history but what I really want to tell you about is the Crusta's beautiful and elaborate garnish. It might be fiddly but they look fantastic and the aroma from the lemon when you're sipping it really sets this apart from similar drinks like a Sidecar.

You'll need

• 50ml brandy
• 35ml Cointreau (or any other orange liqueur you have knocking about)
• 25ml lemon juice
• Sugar to rim the glass
• 1 large lemon to garnish  

Prepare your glass

• Rub a small piece of lemon round the rim of a collins glass or any small tumbler you have to hand
• Pour the sugar on to a saucer and dip the rim into the sugar.
• Cut your lemon in half and trim the ends.
• Using a vegetable peeler starting from the wide-end of the lemon gradually peel the lemon in one continuous strip until you reach the trimmed-end
• Then line the outside of your glass with the lemon peel allowing it to poke out of the top of the glass

Make it 

• Stir the brandy, cointreau and lemon juice over ice in a cocktail shaker until mixed and ice cold
• Strain the mixture into your sugar rimmed, lemon lined glass.

A cut out and keep guide to Jiggery Pokery

I'm a fan of making things easier, so firstly, let me introduce you to a jigger. You probably have one lurking in the back of your cupboard that you nicked from a bar in your student days, but if you didn't partake in university stealing, grab one here. This perfectly engineered device does one thing and one thing only… it measures 50ml and 25ml, which means simple, delicious drinks.

But what use is a tool like that without a bit of help? If only there was a really simple print and fold guide to cocktail shaking you can easily make with a jigger and the spirits you probably have lying around your house.

We've put together a printable cocktail guide for you.  Download it from the link below, print it out, follow these instructions for folding it up and relax in the knowledge you can save any party from dull drinking and bad mixing. It's like you've folded up the Domestic Sluts and slipped them into your pocket like a little origami treat.

Download the guide here, it's really quite fabulous.

The boy and his poison: The Professional

Muddle this, flame that garnish, zest that pith, rinse that glass. There are days when the process of mixing a drink is a pleasure. Then again, there are days when you need something that tastes great but that can be measured out by eye, stirred a bit and then greedily devoured.

My 'go-to' on such days is usually a negroni. One part of everything you can make it by the pint load, delicately sink a slice of orange in it and feel pretty-damn sophisticated as your gin-soaked oblivion gradually massages away the day. Sadly not everyone's a fan of the Queen's favourite tipple and even if you're a gin lover it always pays to have a delicious alternative up your sleeve. The Professional is just that, it will convert bourbon drinkers to negronis, negroni drinkers to bourbon and best of all, confuses the hell out of rum drinkers. It's the UN Peace keeping force of cocktails and all it needs is 10 seconds, a glass, some ice and a vague eye for measures.

You'll need:

• 50ml bourbon (2 parts)
• 25ml Campari (1 part)
• 12ml rum (0.5 part) 

Make it:

• Pour everything into a small tumbler 
• Fill with ice
• Stir with a bar spoon or straw

The boy and his poison: The Eastside

I'm no baker, but knowing I can just about throw together a sponge cake by remembering that its equal parts butter, sugar and flour helps me to feel less of a total amateur around my infinitely more talented colleagues.

The Eastside begins with a similarly genius little ratio that is perfect if you're the sort of person who enjoys great cocktails but doesn't have the time to memorise a recipe book. 2 parts gin, 1 part sour (in this case lime) and 3/4 part sweet (simple syrup).  Consign those amounts to memory and not only will you be able to roll out a vodka gimlet at your next party (swap gin for vodka), but in turn you'll also be able to make Margaritas (with some tequila) and Daiquiris (with rum) just by switching the main boozy ingredient. It's the 'sponge cake' of booze and just like cake, once you've mastered the basics, all it takes are a few flourishes and you have a unique and different drink each time you make it.

You'll need:

• 50ml gin (Hendricks works great with cucumber)
• 25ml lime juice
• 20ml simple syrup
• 5 slices of cucumber
• A small handful of mint leaves

Make it

• Muddle the cucumber, mint and gin in the base of a shaker
• Add the lime juice and simple syrup and stir
• Add a handful of ice and shake for 10 seconds or until ice cold
• Strain into a coupe or martini glass and garnish with a slice of cucumber