It’s definitely Cocktail season.
I mean, all year is cocktail season for me, but late Summer into Autumn is when I start working on Norwich Cocktail Week with a vengeance (wristbands are already on sale) and cocktails are almost permanently on my mind.
A few weeks ago I got an email from Crabbies asking me if I’d like them to send me some of their alcoholic Ginger Beer. “Er, yes thanks.”, I said, and then immediately began thinking about how to turn them into a cocktail.
There are actually some cocktail recipes on the Crabbies website but, almost all of them involved some kind of ingredient that I didn’t own and really couldn’t be faffed to hunt down. So I decided to invent one of my own.
Introducing the Raspberry Gin Buck.
Now, obviously when I say “invent” I didn’t actually invent the Buck cocktail. A Buck cocktail is traditionally made with Ginger Ale or Beer, citrus, and a spirit. I drank my first ever one (and followed it up with many, many more) back in 2010 at a Hendricks event.
It was apparently a popular Summer cooler cocktail in the 1920s, and is super simple to make, exactly how I like my cocktails.
Here I’ve added not only an extra alcoholic component by using alcoholic Ginger Beer, but also a fruit element by adding raspberries and using, er, raspberry Ginger Beer.
This version is a Gin Buck, but you can use any spirit. I also made this with whisky, which was delicious, and using regular Crabbies Ginger Beer, but still adding raspberries. Because I like to make sure I’ve thoroughly tested all aspects of a cocktail before sharing it with you. Aren’t I nice?
Ingredients
25 ml Gin (or spirit of your choice)
Crabbies Alcoholic Scottish Raspberry Ginger Beer
1 tsp of Sugar syrup
1/2 lemon
Fresh raspberries
Add 2 raspberries to the bottom of a high ball glass, add a teaspoon of sugar syrup and muddle together. (This means squish them up, in case you don’t know!)
Add ice to the glass.
Pour over 25ml of Gin, or spirit of your choice and squeeze in the juice of half a lemon.
Top up with Crabbies Raspberry Ginger Beer (about half a bottle).
Garnish with raspberries and fancy paper straws.
Drink.
See, easy peasy!
