Recipe

• 1 large lime

• 500ml water

• 2 tbsp sugar

• ¼ tsp salt

• ¼ tsp Indian spice mix (I used vegetable masala)

• ⅛ tsp ground cumin

• A little black pepper

Squeeze the lime, and mix thoroughly with the other ingredients, for long enough to dissolve the sugar and salt (I shook it together for 30 seconds). Strain into a small glass, with plenty of ice. Should do about 3 glasses.

I read about nimbu pani in Vikram Seth's novel A Suitable Boy, where several of the characters make it fresh and drink it like lemonade on a hot day. One diabetic character makes a point of taking it with salt instead of sugar, and this caught my interest in particular. It sounded interesting enough that I had to try it, and after going through a few recipes online I found a promising one here.

It's quite something! A really interesting take on traditional lemonade, which I think I'll be trying again. Firstly, lime is almost always better than lemon, being a much more interesting citrus flavour. Secondly, a little salt works much better in drinks than people think, and this little bit of "seasoning" complimented the spices well without actually making this a savoury drink (although I imagine some people would prefer less, perhaps ⅛ tsp). Finally, the spices themselves are delightful, adding a certain depth and warmth to everything, without being "hot". It's another indication that Indian cuisine really does put curry spices in everything, but I hope it's also a reminder that this really works sometimes.

Don't knock it till you've tried it!

Recipe

• 1 part crème de cassis

• 2 parts water

Mix in a glass with ice.

Since the UK sugar levy was introduced, the recipe for Ribena has changed, and it’s just not as nice as it used to be. Sure, it’s blackcurranty, but with a certain extra weird taste that’s not really wanted.

Fortunately, adults have crème de cassis, which is the same thing but 20% alcohol! And its recipe hasn’t changed at all.

This tastes exactly like ribena used to, but also gets you hammered. So it’s good! What else can I say?

Sorry for the blurry picture. Scotland had just won the Calcutta Cup, our takeaway had just arrived, and I was in no fit state to be photographing anything.

Recipe

• 30ml dark rum

• 30ml golden rum

• 30ml lime juice

• 15ml orange liqueur (e.g. triple sec)

• 15ml orgeat syrup

• 7.5ml sugar syrup

Shake everything together with ice, and pour into a rocks glass with fresh ice. To garnish, wrap a twist of lime peel around a spear of pineapple, and skewer them together with a cocktail stick. Add a cherry.

In my recent pineapple juice phase (see Bahama Mama) I was looking through a lot of Tiki cocktail recipes on the internet. A huge number of these call for orgeat syrup, something I'd heard of but never tried, and I decided to get myself a bottle and start experimenting. It's basically an almond syrup, with added flavours of orange flower water and/or rosewater, and overall it seems to bring a really interesting smooth sweet twist to a drink.

Mai Tai is apparently the most famous drink with orgeat syrup (indeed, it's the only IBA recipe that includes it), so I thought I'd give it a try. And I'm very glad that I did. It's delicious, with so many sweet ingredients but somehow enough depth from the rum and sourness from the lime that it balances out and comes together to make a wonderful tropical cocktail. It tastes of summer holidays and exotic travel, two things I could definitely do with more of at the moment.

For reference, a "pineapple spear" is just a chunk of pineapple that's reasonably long. I imagine chunks of any size would work, but might be harder to eat afterwards.

Recipe

• 3 parts golden rum

• 1 part coffee liqueur (e.g. Kahlúa)

• 2 parts coconut liqueur​ (e.g. Malibu or Coco Bay)

• 2 parts lemon juice

• 8 parts ​pineapple juice

Shake everything together with ice and pour into a Tiki mug (or anything tropical-looking). Fill with ice, then add a cherry, an umbrella, and a straw.

I bought some pineapple juice recently, figuring I could use a taste of the summer in the cold, miserable winter we're experiencing. After the always-popular French martini and a pineapple-and-soda for breakfast, I still had plenty left to play with, and I went looking online!

Tiki culture is defined by Wikipedia as "a motif of exotically decorated bars and restaurants catering to an escapist longing for travel to tropical regions of the South Pacific." I've often heard of Tiki cocktails, but haven't really looked into them before. It basically seems to mean drinks containing rum and tropical fruit juice, and there was a good selection of recipes that caught my eye. Most of them involved something called "orgeat syrup" which I'll have to look into at some point, but this one looked more doable.

The result is lovely, being very drinkable for something so strong. The coffee liqueur is surprising, but works really well, just adding some depth to the otherwise light drink. The original recipe calls for dark rum, which I think would also be an advantage. I'll have to get myself some of that too.

I could see several of these disappearing on a sunny day, and I'll be sure to try it next time one of those occurs. I could also imagine it as a nice punch in a communal bowl, and I'll be considering it the next time I can actually have people round to my house.

Best drunk while listening to this.

Recipe

• 15ml vodka

• 15ml gin

• 15ml tequila

• 15ml white rum

• 15ml triple sec

• 20ml lemon juice

• 30ml sugar syrup

• A little Red Kola (perhaps 30ml)

Shake all ingredients but the Red Kola together with ice, then strain into a Collins glass over fresh ice. Add the Red Kola and stir just a little.

This is a recipe I made up, based on the Long Island Iced Tea that I've made in the past. The difference is swapping ordinary cola for Red Kola (probably only available in Scotland). It's an interesting change, but doesn't have the same complexity of flavour. Still, it's pretty, and the booze is the important bit anyway!

The lighter colour of the cola shows how little cola you actually need to put into a Long Island Iced Tea. There are bars that will have it be more than half the drink, which really throws the other ingredients into oblivion.

Recipe

• 125ml Tomato juice

• 1.25ml Tabasco sauce

• 1ml Worcestershire sauce

• A pinch of Celery salt

• A pinch of Black pepper

• 1 stick of Celery, to serve

Stir together and serve in a collins glass, with ice and the celery stick.

Alternatively, make a batch: get a whole 1L carton of tomato juice, add the following, close the carton and shake it up. You should get about 8 glasses and it should last a week or two in the fridge.

• 10ml Tabasco sauce

• 7.5ml Worcestershire sauce

• ¼ tsp celery salt

• 4 twists of black pepper (assuming your grinder is like mine)

I've talked about how to make a Bloody Mary before, and since then I've changed my opinion on it a lot. In the old recipe (from the IBA) there's lemon juice and a lot of vodka. Both of these are actually quite harsh flavours that don't really go with the smooth savoury tomato. I eliminated the lemon juice a while ago, and realised that a small amount of vodka (perhaps one shot) is much nicer than the amount the IBA recommends. I was even aware of the Virgin Mary, a version without any vodka at all, but I hadn't tried it.

I was in a hotel in Germany a couple of years ago, and I had an epiphany at the breakfast buffet. As usual, there was salami and Nutella, and those beautiful kaiser rolls (it's almost worth going to Germany just for the hotel breakfasts). But along with the orange juice, the apple juice and the multivitaminsaft, I noticed that they had tomato juice. But not just that: they had Tabasco and salt and pepper as well. That's when it hit me: a Virgin Mary is a breakfast drink!

I had one right then and there, and I was won over straight away. This is a drink that goes really well with savoury breakfast foods (my usual beans on toast are perfect for it) and I've been making them ever since. The spice and savoury salt season the sweetness and smoothness of the tomato juice wonderfully, and the whole thing is a delight to drink, both filling and interesting. Watch out, though: the Tabasco has a real kick!

Get yourself a carton of tomato juice (the supermarket stuff is fine) and make yourself some. Even if it's not to your taste, you have to try it!

Recipe

• 3 parts vanilla vodka

• 1 part lemon juice

• 1 part sugar syrup

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Add a thin slice of lemon.

I bought a bottle of Absolut Vanilia for the express purpose of making Pornstar Martinis – a disappointing experience which I might report on in a future post. Since then, it's just been gathering dust on the shelf, and until now I couldn't think of anything to do with it.

Two nights ago, I fancied a cocktail, and being a little fed up of the usual suspects, I decided to invent something! I went to the shelf looking for something I hadn't tried in a while, and that vanilla vodka jumped out at me. I decided to keep it simple, adding lemon juice and sugar syrup, using the classic sour cocktail formula that's served me so well in the past, 3:1:1 (see, for example, the daiquiri or the whiskey sour). I conjectured that the vanilla and lemon would compliment each other quite well, with the sharp juice cutting through the sickly vanilla, and so I decided to name it after the famous Lemon Drizzle Cake.

The result was just as I had hoped, with a delicious cakey flavour and just the right sweet/sour balance. I'd recommend it to anyone, and it was much better than the very boring lemon drop!

Recipe

• 4 parts white rum

• 2 parts blue Curaçao

• 1 part lime juice

• 1 part coconut rum liqueur (e.g. Malibu)

Superbly tropical and summery, this was the perfect drink for the hot weather we've been having. I made it up completely, but with a bit of guidance from other drinks – it follows my usual sour-cocktail-with-triple-sec recipe, which I've used before, for example, in a margarita!

Also pictured: a Campari spritz, which Claire was drinking.

Recipe

• 4 parts tequila

• 2 parts blue Curaçao

• 1 part lime juice

• 1/2 part agave nectar

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

Exactly the same as a margarita, but blue.

Recipe

• 3 parts white rum

• 2 parts coconut rum (e.g. Malibu or Coco Bay)

• 2 parts blue Curaçao

• 3 parts pineapple juice

• 2 parts sparkling water

Shake the first four ingredients with ice, and strain into a cocktail glass. Add the sparkling water and a cherry.

Two important things happened recently.

Number one: I bought a bottle of blue Curaçao. This is a curious liqueur made with oranges, a lot like Cointreau and other triple secs, but a bit less strong and inexplicably blue. There's really no reason for me to own a bottle except the colour, but I've seen enough exciting-looking drinks that I had to get some.

Number two: it was sunny. This doesn't happen a lot in St Andrews, and I immediately went searching for tropical, summery drinks to enjoy in my garden during lockdown.

After searching through some disgraceful recipes on the internet that seem to be about 90% lemonade, I found something worth trying here. The photo is obviously a complete fake (how can anything look that clear when it's based on pineapple juice?) but I made a couple from the recipe and it's delightful! Really it's more turquoise than blue, but it still looks pretty, and it has a refreshing and fairly adult taste, reminiscent of caribbean beaches and tropical lagoons (at least, in my imagination, having never been to either).

Cocktail umbrellas really aren't designed for this type of glass, but they're always fun, so if you want one you can anchor it in the cherry to stop it falling out or blowing away. Try it yourself!