Recipe

• 50ml Cachaça

• ½ a lime

• 8g sugar (2 teaspoons)

Chop the lime into 6 pieces, drop into an old-fashioned glass, and add the sugar.  Mix up with a teaspoon, trying to squeeze as much juice out of the lime as you can.  Add the cachaça and stir until all the sugar is dissolved.  Fill the glass with ice.

Delightful!  I've never had cachaça before, but it has an interesting taste, a bit like rum and a bit like tequila.  This cocktail was really refreshing and tasty, reminding me a little of the Tequila Mojito I once made.  I'll be having more of these as summer approaches.

Recipe

• 4 parts Angostura bitters

• 4 parts waldmeister syrup (or another syrup)

• 3 parts lemon juice

• 2 parts rye whiskey

Shake thoroughly and strain into a cocktail glass.  (Yes, you read that right.  Nearly a third of this drink is bitters.)

Normally bitters are something you put two or three drops of in a drink, and even then you run the risk of overpowering the other ingredients.  It's such a strong flavour, with such an intense aromatic smell, that I wouldn't have believed this would work.

But it does.  The main flavour is bitters, obviously, but there's enough sweetness and sourness to make it quite well balanced and drinkable.  Bitters, consumed in these quantities, tastes of warm Christmassy spices and herbal remedies.  It's actually a great taste, and I'm glad someone else did the experiment rather than leaving it to me to waste half a bottle of bitters for something that might be awful.

Note that bitters, which I've included in several recipes marked "non-alcoholic", is actually 45% alcohol.  If it's only a few drops it's insignificant, but in this case it's more than a shot of vodka.

Recipe

• 2 parts vodka

• 2 parts apple juice

• 1 part waldmeister

• 1 part lime juice

• ¼ part raki (or absinthe)

Shake with ice, strain into a cocktail glass, and add a mint leaf.

We're nearing the end of our waldmeister season, and this recipe was by far the best.  The apple, lime and woodruff all come together to make a lovely sharp fruity drink with a real tang, and the raki (a Turkish anise spirit I used because I didn't have absinthe) gave it all an other-worldly twist.

The only improvement I'd make would be to use the normal cheap supersweet clarified apple juice – I used Copella, which is ideal at breakfast time but a bit too cloudy and dull for cocktails.

Recipe

• 45ml white rum

• 25ml lime juice (~1 lime)

• 15ml waldmeister syrup

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

Second in our woodruff series we have a twist on a simple classic, simply exchanging simple syrup for waldmeister (German woodruff syrup).

The result is pretty tasty, with the lime and the waldmeister really complementing each other. Next time, a really interesting take on things.

Recipe

• 3 parts Opihr (weird gin with a ton of cardamom in it)

• 1 part lemon juice

• 1 part waldmeister syrup

Shake well with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.  Add a cherry.

This is a good example of the dangers of unusual gin.  I think Opihr would've been great in a martini or something – after all, the flavours are really interesting and worth savouring – but in an aviation it was all wrong.  The interesting thing here was supposed to be replacing the cherry liqueur with waldmeister (or woodruff) syrup, a charismatic German flavour that I love but isn't easy to find in the UK.  But in this case it just tasted of curry.

The experiment was a failure.

Recipe

• 5 parts brandy

• 2 parts mint liqueur

Stir together with ice, and strain into a cocktail glass. Add a mint leaf.

Finally nailed it. My first attempt was sickly and harsh, with far too much sugar (thanks a lot, 12-bottle bar). My second attempt followed the IBA recipe, but I attempted to produce my own crème de menthe by infusing mint into home-made syrup and mixing it with vodka – giving not nearly enough mint flavour. This time round, I've stuck with the IBA recipe, but using a proper mint liqueur.

Instead of crème de menthe, I used a bottle of Berliner Luft I got on holiday last week – a cheap peppermint liqueur commemorating the Berlin airlift of 1948–49. It has a much mintier taste than my homemade stuff, and it goes beautifully with the brandy. I'll be drinking this again!

Recipe

• 25ml tequila blanco

• 25ml golden rum

• 5ml maraschino

• 5ml strawberry vodka

• 5ml orange bitters

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Add a twist of lemon peel.

I felt like making up a cocktail, and I decided to base it on the Sir Walter, swapping brandy for tequila and mixing up the extra ingredients too. I looked up the Spanish (or Mexican) version of the name Walter, and apparently it's Gutierre, so I picked that as the name. Better still, it turns out that Gutierre de Cetina was a Spanish contemporary of Sir Walter Raleigh, and he made the crossing to Mexico as a soldier-poet. Maybe the drink is named in his honour.

It had a good taste, a bit like a twisted funny version of the Sir Walter. The rum and tequila went well together, though a darker tequila might have been even better.

The strawberry vodka was home-made: I had a pot of strawberry rock that had all stuck together and I was about to throw it out, so I added vodka instead and it made a nice liqueur. Also pictured: a model Roman warship built by Claire. Let no one say that wasn't a good present.

Recipe

• A shot of fucking Jäger mate

• Some fucking red bull right

Mix it all together like a mad lad on the town and pour it down your throat like a wasted fresher.

Oh god.

Recipe

• 45ml mezcal (or tequila)

• 20ml maraschino

• 20ml lemon juice

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Add a cherry.

I made an Aviation once before and it was superb, making for a nice balanced way to enjoy a gin without overpowering it, and looking beautiful too. I recently tried a tequila-and-tonic, and was so impressed I thought maybe I should try using tequila instead of gin in some other drinks, and here we are.

The tequila I chose for this was actually not tequila, but mezcal – a less specific term that includes a load of more interesting and weird agave-based spirits from Mexico. This one was called "400 Conejos", a reference to an Aztec myth I don't completely understand about drunken rabbits. It's outstanding, weird and surprising with every sip, and it went really well in this drink.

Recipe

• 6 parts vodka

• 3 parts espresso coffee

• 3 parts coffee liqueur

• 1 part sugar syrup

Shake thoroughly with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Add three coffee beans on top of the foam for decoration.

I can see why these are getting so popular! It's sweet and easy to drink, but rich and strong and unflinchingly coffeeish. I used Kahlua, which I've never had in anything else. The only thing that'll stop me making more is a lack of espresso – I had to get mine at work and bring it back in a plastic bottle!