Cocktails With Flair With Nicholson
A brand new cocktail series celebrating the artfulness of cocktail-making with Nicholson’s festive-ready drink collection.
The festive season brings out our most creative selves. Every year, we find ourselves looking for new and artful ways to make gathering together feel special. This can be anything from how we decorate our space to the dishes and drinks we serve our guests. Last year we had an obsession with colour - we served up bubblegum pink French 75’s, adorned a ladder in place of a Christmas tree with glossy rainbow baubles and decked our halls with paper garlands in shades of blueberry and clementine. The year before we were fully committed to all things seventies - from jelly-based desserts and pineapple centrepieces to classic cocktails served with an unexpected side of Turkish Delight. The finer details of hosting is where we get to play and in November and December we can really turn the dial up on this! This festive season we are finding our imagination drawn to the world of cocktails - wondering about how we can expand our repertoire to make everything from the serve to the sip feel like drinking in a work of art.
In collaboration with Nicholson, a brand who has produced premium spirits in London since 1736, here are the recipes for four iconic drinks, designed to speak to our guests’ inner world and express something about how we want them to feel when they’re in our company.
DISCOVER NICHOLSON ON GLASSETTE
The first two cocktails in the series are a celebration of Nicholson’s Artist Series, a project that champions artists who bring a rich tapestry of creativity to their work. For this collaboration, they gave multi-disciplinary artist Shaquille-Aaron Keith complete creative freedom to infuse his unique vision onto their labels. The result is a series of bottles that are expressive and captivating, miniature artworks that show a window into Shaquille’s vibrant, luminous world.
THE EXPLORER
An Elegant Green Tomato and Basil Gimlet
For this drink, we set out to create a flavour experience that is completely new - sweet green tomatoes as a syrupy foundation to Nicholson’s delicious dry gin with garnish growing and sprouting from the glass. What happens when you begin an evening with unexplored landscapes - where is it possible to climb to from there?
The Recipe
Add to a cocktail shaker:
2 ounces of tomato cordial
1/2 ounce of simple syrup
2 ounces of Nicholson London Dry Gin
Shake well and pour over ice
Garnish with green tomatoes and curly stems
For The cordial
Blitz together one cup of chopped green tomatoes, one cup of cucumber,
peeled and diced, a few basil leaves and a half a squeezed lime
Strain through a fine mesh sieve and set aside
For the simple syrup
Add 1/2 cup of granulated sugar and 1/2 cup of water to a saucepan and
stir until dissolved
Let cool
THE ARTIST
A Classic Blood Orange Gin Martini
A cocktail designed to appeal to your guests’ imagination - something timeless takes on a striking new form with rippled ice and twisting, leaf-like trims. There will be many imitations and iterations but nothing will compare to your original, artful expression.
The Recipe
Add to a cocktail shaker:
4 ounces Nicholson Blood Orange Gin
2 ounces blood orange juice
1 ounce of blood orange syrup
For The Syrup
Add 1/2 cup of granulated sugar & 1/2 cup of water to a saucepan and stir until dissolved
Add the blood orange peel and simmer on low for 5 minutes
Let cool
DISCOVER SHAQUILLE-AARON KEITH’S LIMITED EDITION BOTTLES NOW ON GLASSETTE
The next two cocktails in the series we felt were very important to include. These are low effort but high impact drinks using Nicholson’s expertly made, pre-batched cocktail drinks. This is the answer to our festive problems around time/energy and means that we can concentrate our creative efforts on the garnish and spectacle (which is what our guests always remember!).
THE LOVER
A Show-Stopping Negroni with Cherry Ice
This is a drink that celebrates the heady rush of love. There’s no feeling quite like it. It’s a bold and intoxicating serve, glazed with cherries and erupting with light. It’s the show-stopper you serve at the end of the night, a crescendo to your gathering that leaves a lingering impression that your guests were somewhere important, in the swirl of something magnificent.
The Recipe
Pour 3.5 ounces of Nicholson Negroni into a glass
Add large ice-cubes with cherries inside
Stir and serve
THE MYSTIC
A Smoking Margarita with Edible Floral Ice
We wanted to make something to transport your guests to another dimension. This drink sets the tone of magic, suggests a liminal space, perhaps the night can be a portal into a new world. This is the one we’ll be serving on New Year’s Eve as we reach the precipice of another year, before stepping into the beautiful unknown.
The Recipe
Pour 3.5 ounces into a glass
Add spherical ice cubes with edible flowers inside
Stir and serve
Videos by Glassette made in collaboration with Nicholson