Recipe

• 4 parts gin

• 1 part maraschino

• 1 part lemon juice

• 1 part orange bitters

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

Much, much better than last time.  For the record, orange bitters are nothing like aromatic bitters, and my earlier attempt was nothing like a proper Casino.  I guess you can see that just by looking at the pictures.

This is an excellent drink, with big flavours that you don't need a great palate to appreciate.  The orange bitters are the most obvious component, with a nice zesty tang over the pleasing balance of the other three ingredients (strong, sweet and sour respectively).  It also looks pretty good – I guess you could easily mistake it for an aviation, in style as well as in taste.

I'm proud to announce that I'm now reasonably competent at making twists of lemon peel.  These looked good, and stayed in neat helical shapes even after the drink was finished.  The trick is to twist them up really tight to start with, then pull the ends like stretching a spring, before dropping them in. Apparently it also doesn't hurt to leave a little pith on them (something I've been spending way too much time trying to avoid).