Recipe

• 30ml Amaro Montenegro

• 30ml red vermouth

• 30ml soda water

Pour the amaro and vermouth into an old-fashioned glass and put it into the freezer for an hour, until just frozen. Add the soda water, stir, and add a thick half-slice of orange.

Amaro is a category of liqueurs, usually Italian, with a bitter or bittersweet taste, based on wine or spirits infused with botanicals. Famous amaros include Campari, Cynar and Jägermeister, all of which I've had at some point, and some of which have appeared on this blog. Now an excellent friend of mine has given me a bottle of Amaro Montenegro, and after a few tastes I was keen to try it in a cocktail.

I've previously enjoyed Campari in an americano) and loved it, so this seemed a good place to start. I followed the usual recipe for an americano, but using this new amaro instead of Campari. Montenegro is much sweeter than Campari, so I was looking forward to something easier to drink.

Here's where things got interesting, because I'd run out of ice. Necessity is the mother of invention, so I decided just to chill the glass and ingredients in the freezer for a while, minus the soda which would go flat. I went ahead and, predictably, forgot about it for an hour so came back to two red ice cubes.

I was contemplating thawing it in the microwave, but then remembered that, of course, many people like frozen cocktails. How bad could it be, I thought, as I added the soda water.

I was lucky! The mix of drinks hadn't frozen solid, but made a sort of snow that stirred easily into liquid, and produced a very nicely textured slush drink. I added the orange as planned, and sipped.

Superb! There are so many flavours in the amaro, with such complexity, yet enough bitterness to make a really well balanced cocktail. And the frozen texture was delightful, with a smooth chill, and none of the crunch of a slush puppy or frozen margarita. Probably getting it to only-just-freezing helps a lot. I'll be experimenting more with frozen drinks in future.