Asking for a spot of tea at Fubar on Sunday night meant getting something far more potent as Jamie Terrell, brand head of Hendrick’s Gin for the Asia-Pacific region, led a cocktail tasting. “During Prohibition, teapots helped to disguise the use of alcohol,” he explained, and added that spirits were often mixed with juice to further help hide the evidence. I’m guessing those teapots made it easier for the authorities to sometimes (often?) look the other way.
I tried three Hendrick’s-based cocktails, all from recipes Terrell says were created in the past year or so:
1) Teatime Martini, with gin, fresh lemon juice and rose petal jam. This one seems to be tricky in terms of getting the sour and sweet balanced. The first glass turned out to be mouth-puckering, the second swinging between sweet and sour, and these were my least favorites of the night.
2) Flora Dora, with gin, fresh lime juice and raspberry syrup. This one is sweet, but not cloyingly so, and has nice jammy aromas and flavors. It should be a crowd pleaser.
3) Earl of Negroni, with gin, Campari, Martini Rosso and Ceylon tea with fresh rose buds. The most interesting of the three with a slightly milky and tannic ending.
The night also featured happy hour prices, which meant Fubar’s popular Hendrick’s Gin Tonic at RMB25…
words cannot describe how pleased i am that it is (formally) negroni season. a little italian trattoria called i sodi in the west village of new york makes a house negroni with hendrick’s and punt e mes, which is how i’ve striven to take them ever since (though punt e mes is slightly harder to come by here).
so the earl of negroni’s ceylon tea contained milk? interesting. wonder how that paired with the campari…