Dropping the spirits from your Friday night cocktail, doesn’t have to mean compromising on flavour. Fortified wines deliver complexity in the same way spirits do without the alcoholic heft. Sherry in particular, with its flavour…
Dropping the spirits from your Friday night cocktail, doesn’t have to mean compromising on flavour. Fortified wines deliver complexity in the same way spirits do without the alcoholic heft. Sherry in particular, with its flavour enhancing powers of umami, makes a great stand-in for gin or whisky. Try subbing 50ml of dry manzanilla for the London dry in your Negroni and you’ll have a great aperitif that’s easier on your head than the original. The recipes below show how you can use sherry to effectively cut a few units out of cocktail hour.
Rebujito
A popular way to beat the heat in southern Spain, the classic Rebujito is a simple highball of dry sherry and Sprite or 7up. It’s a fine drink as-is, but if you take the time to juice some fresh citrus – effectively making it like a Tom Collins – then the Rebujito really comes into its own.
Ingredients
50ml Valdespino Fino Inocente
10ml Lemon juice
10ml Lime Juice 20ml 1:1 simple syrup Soda Water
6 Mint leaves
Method
Pour the sherry, citrus juice, sugar and mint leaves into a highball glass. Lightly muddle the mint leaves to wake them up a bit and then fill the glass to the brim with ice cubes. Top with soda water and enjoy. You can easily scale this recipe up and serve it by the pitcher. It makes a nice little appetite-lifter to serve pre-dinner, particularly when the weather starts to warm up.
Valdespino is a little fuller than your average Fino, with a palate of toasted almonds and salted caramel that stands up nicely to the citrus and mint. A bottle will keep for about two weeks in the fridge after opening so you don’t have to finish it all in one night.
Bamboo
Fills a Martini-shaped hole without the large helping of gin. The Bamboo found its way into the cocktail canon in the late 19th century, when it began gracing the bar at the Yokohama Grand Hotel.
Put a cocktail glass into the freezer ahead of time, you’ll appreciate the extra few degrees you shave off when it comes time to drink. Stir all ingredients with ice until nicely chilled. Strain into your frozen cocktail glass and garnish with a lemon twist.
Any dry sherry will do the job here, but the fresh saltiness of Manzanilla lifts the botanicals in the vermouth nicely. La Gitana En Rama is unfiltered, showing lots of body and character, even when stirred down over ice. You could also use a dry, nutty Oloroso and a sweet red vermouth – but you’ll wind up with more of a digestif than an aperitif.
Sherry Cobbler
The Cobbler Is one of the earliest cocktails, arriving in American barrooms with its cousin the julep in the 1820s-or-so, around the time that block ice became commercially available. Drinks historian David Wondrich suggests that the relatively low-octane Sherry Cobbler occupied a similar role to modern soft drinks and helped to popularise both ice and the drinking straw.
Muddle your sliced citrus fruit with the sherry and simple syrup in the bottom of a shaker. Add ice cubes and shake hard. Strain into a highball glass filled with crushed ice and top with a fresh orange slice. Cobblers are supposed to be pretty, so a sprig of mint, or some more fresh fruit for garnish makes a great addition – just use whatever you have to hand.
The Gonzales Byass Palo Cortado is dry and nutty, but also has a fruity, citrusy side that shows really nicely in a cobbler. A dash of orange liqueur or Maraschino will add an extra dimension, as will a few berries or some diced pineapple in the shaker. Like many classic cocktails, the format affords plenty of room to riff and remix.
PX Flip
A serious desert cocktail, the flip takes a little booze and a whole egg and gives you a glass of silky, creamy goodness. Lighter than the lactose-laden likes of a Brandy Alexander, the PX flip satisfies in a similar way as a cream liqueur but fresher and less cloying.
Chill down a large cocktail glass in the freezer. Shake all ingredients as hard as you can with ice. When you’re trying to whip up a whole egg you need to make sure you’re shaking for at least 60 seconds. Fine strain into the chilled cocktail glass and you’ll be rewarded with a light but creamy cocktail that tastes of raisins, toasted nuts and baking spices. Garnish with a little grating of nutmeg and serve.
A little slug of good dark rum will add some extra backbone if the situation demands it, as would a little Anejo Tequila if you’re feeling adventurous. Such additions will start to raise the ABV, of course, but even 15ml-or-so will make a difference to the flavour.
Mince pies, cake, roast turkey, port, Buck’s Fizz, roast potatoes, Champagne… December brings with it a host of delicious, indulgent treats. I can’t remember the last Christmas that didn’t end in me being so full…
Mince pies, cake, roast turkey, port, Buck’s Fizz, roast potatoes, Champagne… December brings with it a host of delicious, indulgent treats. I can’t remember the last Christmas that didn’t end in me being so full that I questioned my sanity at having taken a third helping of roast potatoes before I had pudding, but I digress. It makes sense, then, to exercise a little restraint once the new year rolls around.
Many of us will be starting off the year by cutting all alcohol from our diets for 31 days and providing our livers with a bit of respite, but there are some who choose to follow the old ‘everything in moderation’ method instead. Not completely cutting anything out of our lives, but not overindulging either, which is why I’ve tracked down some of the best low-ABV cocktails to enjoy this year.
Grapefruit SpirtZ – Spritz it up
Most famous for its regular appearance in beer gardens across the country during summer, the classic Aperol spritz is a tasty cocktail that’s easy to make, and even easy to add flair to. This grapefruit spritzer is a refreshing twist on this timeless low-abv cocktail.
Ingredients
135ml grapefruit juice
15ml Aperol
225ml tonic water
Grapefruit slices for garnish.
Method
Fill a glass with ice, add the grapefruit juice and Aperol then fill to the top with tonic water, add a slice of grapefruit to garnish and enjoy!
Americano – Bittersweet Symphony
Low-ABV cocktails don’t have to compromise on flavour or sophistication and the Americano is proof of this. Made with both Campari and sweet vermouth, this bittersweet, aromatic cocktail is perfect for happy hour, or accompanying a creamy pasta dish, such as carbonara.
Add Campari and sweet vermouth to a highball glass before filling the glass with ice, then top up with club soda, stir and enjoy.
Mimosa – Light and bubbly
A staple at brunch, the Mimosa is a well-known low-ABV cocktail with just two ingredients – Champagne and orange juice. But I like to be different (and grew up in an orange-free home), so here is a pomegranate-based version of the classic Champagne cocktail.
Ingredients
125ml Champagne
15ml pomegranate juice
1 teaspoon pomegranate seeds to garnish
Method
Pour the Champagne into a flute, then top up with pomegranate juice, garnish with pomegranate seeds and enjoy!
Floppy Disk – Retro Fun
Some of you may remember floppy disks, the predecessor to the memory stick that was immortalised in the save symbol on Microsoft. This next cocktail is a version of Jenner Cormier’s low-abv cocktail of the same name, from Bar Kismet in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Ingredients
225ml grapefruit juice
225ml sparkling water
15ml Cynar
15ml dry curacao
10ml mezcal
Grapefruit slice to garnish
Method
Add all ingredients except sparkling water in a cocktail shaker with ice, shake well and strain into a chilled glass. Top with sparkling water and garnish with a slice of grapefruit
For many people, myself included, sherry has a reputation of being a favourite of Grandmas everywhere. Similar to Port, this fortified wine has become known for its sweet flavours and slightly sticky texture, despite the…
For many people, myself included, sherry has a reputation of being a favourite of Grandmas everywhere. Similar to Port, this fortified wine has become known for its sweet flavours and slightly sticky texture, despite the range of styles available. From fino to Pedro Ximenez, sherry is a versatile drink that should be appreciated by more than just the Grannies of the world.
Hailing from the Jerez region of Andalucia, south-west Spain, sherry is made from white grapes, typically of the Palamino, Moscatel and Pedro Ximénez varieties. Used in cooking and cocktails alike, the many styles of sherry are as versatile as they are bountiful. However, with a relatively short shelf-life, most bottles of sherry left half-filled at the end of the festive season don’t make it to the next. So we have come up with a few ways to use that lonely half-bottle that’s hiding in the cupboard.
Pedro Ximénez sherry
Cooking – Sticky Toffee Pudding With A Twist
Rich and sweet, Sticky Toffee Pudding is a staple for Sunday dinners and school cafeterias, but its about time it levelled-up and Pedro Ximénez (PX) sherry is the way to do it!
To start off with, make the pudding part of your Sticky Toffee Pudding as you normally would – I am partial to this recipe from BBC Good Food. While your pudding is in the oven, begin making your sauce – this is where the magic happens. When adding the black treacle to your boiling mixture of cream, sugar and butter, also add 2tbsp of PX sherry, then finish making the sauce as normal. This will add a layer of luscious fruit to the sticky sweet sauce, nicely complementing the dates in the pudding.
Cocktail – Fruity Espresso Martini
A modern favourite of the cocktail world, the Espresso Martini is one easy step away from true greatness. Simply use PX sherry instead of simple syrup to add a kick of rich fruit to mingle with the bold coffee flavours. If, like me, you prefer to follow a recipe, try this one from The Happy Foodie.
Pot Luck – Ice Is Nice
Creamy vanilla ice cream is a wonderful accompaniment to many desserts, but with a bit of PX sherry poured over the top it becomes the star of the show.
Fino Sherry
Cooking – Another Fish In The Sea
Fish and white wine have long been heralded as a great pairing, but I propose that fino sherry and fish are even better. Light-bodied and dry, the lemony, nutty and toasty flavours of the sherry mingle wonderfully with creamy white sauces and add a unique flair to any fish dish.
Cocktail – So Long Vermouth
It appears there is a theme to the type of cocktail that sherry works well in, as fino sherry shines in a Salty Martini. A combination of vodka, fino sherry and caper brine, with an olive or two to garnish, this is a nutty, salty cocktail that is just as classy as the original. While vermouth is optional in this version of the classic cocktail, some recipes still include it, like this one from Difford’s Guide.
Pot Luck – The New G&T
In recent years, in line with the rise of gin, tonic has undergone a massive revival, with many brands creating flavourful tonics that work well with more than just gin. The sweet, dry nuttiness of fino sherry mingles delightfully with the delicate bitterness of tonic, creating a simple yet delightful cocktail.
cream sherry
Cooking – A Sweet Tooth
Almost as overlooked as sherry itself, trifle is an underrated dessert, made with a combination of biscuits, fruit and boozy syllabub (I’m not entirely sure what a ‘syllabub’ is, but I’ve yet to have a bad experience with one). Perhaps not a new idea, as traditionally a trifle includes sherry as well as brandy, but cream sherry adds a rich sweetness that other styles do not. The good folks over at BBC Good Food have created a recipe for this so that you don’t have to.
Cocktail – Not Your Average Negroni
Say goodbye to gin and hello to cream sherry with the fabulous Sherry Negroni. The cream sherry adds a layer of soft, fruity sweetness that delightfully tempers the herbal bitterness of the Campari. While this recipe (once again) from BBC Good Food suggests using PX sherry, we think that a cream sherry is a better choice for this particular cocktail.
Pot Luck – Cream Of The Crop
A vibrant version of a classic, comforting tomato soup, made unique by the addition of rich cream sherry. A grown-up take on a nostalgic comfort food, this is the perfect way to use up the remains of the Christmas sherry and survive the rest of winter. Make it for yourself with this recipe from Good Thyme Kitchen.
There are certain Christmas bottles that have a bad habit of slowly migrating backwards through the drinks cabinet. They’re excitedly bought and placed at the front of the shelf, ready for a spot of festive…
There are certain Christmas bottles that have a bad habit of slowly migrating backwards through the drinks cabinet. They’re excitedly bought and placed at the front of the shelf, ready for a spot of festive cheer, but the cold-light of January doesn’t quite give them the same appealing glow. Back they go, ready to be found during a booze-spelunking mission sometime around Easter.
The type of drink that most often seems to fall into this trap is the humble liqueur. Often brightly coloured and almost certainly indulgent, they are not generally a go-to beverage on a Tuesday evening, but they should not be hidden away – there’s a lot more to liqueurs than festive excess.
Up-cycling cream liqueurs
The sales spike that cream liqueurs get at Christmas is astounding. The Irish connection may get them a bit of notice on St Patrick’s Day, but it’s the festive season when their creamy charms are at their height. Our favourite creamily festive liqueur is Coole Swan – it’s not only tasty, but has a flavour profile that means it won’t languish in the fridge for long once the Christmas tree is down.
Cooking
When it comes to making boozy desserts, the Italians have things sorted, With a whole range of puds that rely on soaking in, drizzling with and, even more simply, serving alongside something alcoholic, you won’t find a bottle untouched for long in an Italian household. Taking a leaf out of their book, we reckon that it’s time to push tiramisu to an even more indulgent level.
Don’t just serve your pudding with a drink, put the drink in the pudding!
You can add a creamy liqueur to almost every part of a tiramisu – whip it with your mascarpone mix, drizzle it over the layers as you build the dessert, or, our favourite, add it to the coffee before you soak your ladyfingers. Creamy coffee flavours amplified – next-level tiramisu.
Cocktail
Creamy liqueurs are often quite difficult to use in cocktails, as cream has a tendency to react badly with alcohol – one of the key challenges of making a great cream liqueur is making sure that the components all play together nicely. However, there are a few almost foolproof recipes that are a great way to bring some extra creaminess to your drink.
Our choice is the Espresso Martini. The classic ‘wake me up’ cocktail is normally focused on a black-coffee vibe, but you can quickly take it in a creamy cappucino direction with a splash of cream liqueur. Switch out the coffee liqueur, and off you go:
1 part espresso (still hot)
1 part vodka
2 parts cream liqueur
Shake with lots of ice until cold and then fine strain into a coupe. Dust with a bit of bitter cocoa and garnish with three coffee beans.
Pot luck
If you’re not in a cooking mood and you’ve run out of ice, then it’s time for the classic way to enjoy Irish cream – in a hot drink.
While adding cream liqueur does not an Irish coffee make, it’s an easy way of getting close to the classic without the faff. Simply make a cup of black coffee and then add the liqueur as if it was milk. If coffee isn’t your thing, then it works just as well, if not even better, in hot chocolate – just make sure you don’t replace all the milk with liqueur. Also recommended for long winter Zoom meetings.
Up-cycling Crème de cassis
Deep reddy purple, packed with fruity blackcurrant flavour and beautifully sticky, crème de cassis is the archetypal liqueur and a fixture of many a drinks cabinet, my own included. It stays fresh-tasting for a while, but I only know that from stories – bottles don’t last long in my house, as it’s an essential for more than just sipping from a tiny glass.
Cooking
Cassis – and its crème de <insert French word for fruit here> siblings – are focused around intense fruitiness and are the perfect thing to add an extra punch of flavour to your cooking. I’m a great believer in having a bag of frozen berries in the freezer at all times, as they are a quick and easy way of adding fruity goodness to lots of different desserts, and a quick glug of cassis adds another layer of flavour.
For a go-to, quick pud, I often go for a crumble. If they’re in season, grab a load of fresh berries, but if not, your bag of emergency frozen summer fruits also works perfectly well. Arrange them in a dish, drizzle over some cassis, top with the crumble topping of your choice – I usually add a handful of oats and a sprinkle of cinnamon to a roughly rubbed-together mix of flour, butter and coarse sugar – and bake until the berries start trying to break through the topping. Serve with ice cream or a spoon of yoghurt – delicious at any time of year.
Cocktail
Our cocktail choice for cassis is a gentle twist on a modern-classic cocktail created by the same bartender who invented the Espresso Martini – the late, great Dick Bradsell. His original recipe uses crème de mure (blackberry liqueur), but cassis works excellently as well, even if it does step away from the drink’s original idea of focusing on quintessentially British ingredients – blackberries and gin.
If you want to go absolutely classic, garnish the drink with a raspberry – the story is that the shop down the road from Fred’s Club, where Bradsell invented the drink, didn’t have much fresh fruit and didn’t have any blackberries that day, so he made do with a raspberry instead. If you can’t find a raspberry, follow his example and pop in whatever you can find.
Pot luck
The main reason I keep a bottle of cassis in the house is for a drink that my mum introduced me to – the Kir. In their retirement, she and my step-dad try to spend a chunk of the year in France, sitting on a canal boat that seldom seems to leave dock. Their forays away from the boat seem to always result in a series of increasingly surreal text messages and drink suggestions, passed on directly from the bars and restaurants within easy striking distance of the boat. I’ve managed to stop her from shaking Manhattans <shudder>, but have thoroughly encouraged the pre-prandial Kir, which they now indulge in when back at home in the UK.
Simply put, Kir is white wine with a splash of fruity liqueur. While my mum has branched out into the world of peach, blackberries and beyond, it’s cassis that is the classic – just add a little bit to your glass and top up with white wine. The International Bartenders Association recommends a 1:10 ratio of liqueur to wine but recipes from the early 1900s go for a much sweeter 1:3 – make sure you tweak to your taste.
And, if you want to go one step further, switch out the wine for Champagne to make a Kir Royale – a great way to jazz up your evening.
Up-cycLing sloe gin
Once something made at home and hidden in the airing cupboard for years before appearing at Christmas, sloe gin is increasingly available from actual shops all-year round. While this does mean that it’s easier to find, it also means that you might end up with more of it in the house, looking for a purpose. Fortunately, there’s lots you can do with it.
Cooking
The sweet-but-tart flavour of sloe gin pairs with lots of different foods. From savoury dishes needing a touch of balanced sharpness, veggies looking for a glaze and gravies in need of a fruity punch, it’s surprisingly versatile. However, our recommendation is for a favourite dessert – poached rhubarb.
Rhubarb: definitely not a vegetable. Maybe.
Rhubarb is an interesting…fruit? Vegetable? Stalk? I’m going with stalk. Its tart and vegetal flavour is like almost nothing else, and can be taken in many different directions depending on its accompaniment. Going for something a bit different to usual, we eschew the traditional crumble and go for sloe-gin-poached rhubarb.
First warm up a mixture of sloe gin and water – start with a 1:4 ratio of water:sloe gin, but add more water if your sloe gin is especially sticky or if you rhubarb is especially thick or old. Add some sugar or honey if you like things a bit sweeter. While it’s heating up, cut your rhubarb into longish pieces and arrange in a shallow oven-safe dish. Pour over the sloe gin/water mixture once you start to be able to smell the booze, and bake in the centre of a 180ºC oven for 40 minutes or so, until the rhubarb’s tender. The liquid should have reduced to a glaze, but you can reduce it further if it hasn’t. Serve in a pool of the cooking juices and top with a scoop of ice cream.
Cocktail
Sloe gin is a useful addition to many cocktails, adding a different, sharper flavour to most fruity liqueurs and, in most cases, a bigger boozy kick – a negroni with gin, vermouth, Campari and sloe gin can be a marvellous thing. However, as we approach the spring, it’s time for lighter drinks, and we rather like a Sloe Gin Fizz.
It’s a fresh and fruity drink, perfect as the days start to thaw a bit:
45ml sloe gin
30ml lemon juice
15ml 1:1 simple syrup (add more or less depending on how sweet your sloe gin is)
Soda water
Shake the gin, lemon and syrup with ice until very chilled. Strain into a collins glass filled with ice and top up with soda. Give it a little stir, garnish with a lemon wedge and sip while looking out the window, trying not to think how many days it is until next Christmas.
Pot Luck
While it’s sweet and sticky, the tarter nature of sloe gin lends it to more savoury dishes than many other liqueurs. As mentioned previously, it’s great in gravies and glazes, adding a layer of fruity depth, and it’s old-fashioned flavour pairs up perfectly with old-school British dishes – time for a bit of game.
Venison is increasingly available these days and more affordable than it used to be. A strongly flavoured meat, it’s perfect for rich, indulgent sauces and is the perfect antidote to a frugal January. The classic pairing is venison with juniper and berries, which makes sloe gin the ideal boozy accompaniment – we like BBC Good Food’s recipe for pan-fried venison with juniper, sloe gin and plums, but a bit of sloe gin will add an extra kick of flavour to almost any classic venison dish.
Or, as a last resort, rebottle your sloe gin into smaller bottles, attach bows and hand-written labels, and give them as gifts next Christmas. No one need know that you didn’t make it yourself…
Port’s reputation in the UK has become a little dusty. It is, in the mind’s eye, just heavy wine – sweet and delicious, certainly, but also, perhaps, reminiscent of being slightly too hot, and a…
Port’s reputation in the UK has become a little dusty. It is, in the mind’s eye, just heavy wine – sweet and delicious, certainly, but also, perhaps, reminiscent of being slightly too hot, and a bit sleepy after a big meal. It’s also a cousin of sherry which is, primarily, to the uninitiated, what nans drink – a perception which, by association, tends not to do port many favours.
The above is all complete nonsense though (apart from the “heavy wine” bit – I stand by that). Port is impressively flavoursome and deceptively versatile. On the continent they drink it chilled from voluminous wine glasses; they lift it with ice and tonic and a sprig of mint; they cook with it, they sip it, they mix it. Port’s up to much more than the simple digestif duty to which we’ve condemned it – we’ve just forgotten how to use it.
The Douro Valley is very hot and dry. Chilled port is a must.
With no more ado, then, here are a few ideas on how to save the second half of that bottle in your cupboard from simply waiting for next Christmas.
Tawny Port
Cooking – It’s All Gravy
Turkey might just be for Christmas, but roasts are for life, and roasts, dear reader, demand gravy. Onion? Great. Red wine? Sure. Port? Prepare to impress people.
Roast your roast, remove food from pan, and deglaze said pan with your Christmas port. All that awesome flavour will combine with the awesome flavour already contained within your port, to produce one of the greatest gravies known to human kind – a chimeric, delicious wonder-sauce.
Cocktail – Don’t Call Port Old Fashioned
The Old Fashioned is a classic – not to mention relatively simple – cocktail which has undergone a massive surge in popularity in recent years. Most commonly served as a whisky cocktail, its spirit-forward construction – and thus, flavour – has made it a favourite with discerning drinkers; those who would rather a cocktail accentuate their spirit of choice, rather than obscure it.
The Old Fashioned is a modern classic.
The ingredients for an Old Fashioned are – in addition to your cornerstone spirit – sugar, bitters, and orange rind. Now, as it turns out, all three of those things meld rather beautifully with port. Indeed, add them all together and what you end up with is something remarkably close to a chilled, incredibly sophisticated mulled something.
A word of warning: you might want to go easy on the sugar – port is naturally fairly sweet – and too much bitters will obliterate the finer points of any port’s flavour profile, but a little of this and a touch of that should reward you with a truly delicious drink.
Pot Luck – Get Cheesed Off
Some things are classics for a reason. Sometimes that reason is obvious. Sometimes it isn’t and it takes a change in perspective to really drive the point home.
Port and cheese has been a staple combo for, we can only assume, ever. But that might also be a part of, if it has one, port’s problem. Combine that association with heat and comfort, with an image of soft brie at the end of an afternoon or evening of overindulgence, and everything starts to feel a bit stodgy. The solution? Do as the Portuguese do.
Ruby port and stilton. Delicious, but don’t you feel slightly too warm just looking at it?
Take that bottle, sling it in the fridge for an hour, nip to the shop for a wedge of strong, hard cheese, and get stuck in. This cooler, altogether fresher take on port and cheese is as well suited to an evening in your kitchen as it is the hot, dry climes of the Douro valley where port is made, and will provide a brand new take on the flavours that make this pairing such a timeless one. Saúde!
Ruby/LBV Port
Cooking – Generosity Is A Virtue
Now, look – you’re going to think this is a cop-out, but the answer to cooking with port is to use it everywhere you might use red wine, and to start getting inventive. It’s the new year, there are tonnes of recipes and techniques you’ve been meaning to try out but haven’t yet got around to, and you’ve got half a bottle of port in the cupboard. Time to get stuck in!
Caramelise those shallots, slow cook that lamb – hell, bake that chocolate cake – and do it all with a generous glug of your delicious new pal: port.
Cocktail – Never Go To Bed S-angri-a
We’ve now discussed the myriad virtues of drinking port cold at some length – they being that it is cool, refreshing, delicious, and you can pair it with stuff that you might not if served at room temperature. Port in Sangria might be taking things to a whole new level, but bear with us.
Most Sangria recipes call for the addition of sugar, brandy, or both. Port, being, as it is, already fortified, negates the need to have a whole other type of alcohol to hand just to enjoy your favourite Iberian beverage. If anything, the addition of some water or tonic or similar will only lift its fruity deliciousness to further, previously untold heights – heights themselves scattered richly with bits of delicious fruit.
All of which is a rather convoluted way of suggesting that Sangria – itself just as native to Portugal as Spain – might just be the perfect drink through which to share your leftover Christmas port with your friends, and lift the spirits of all involved. Or just turn the heating right up, don a swimsuit and throw an at-home beach party for one – no judgement.
This is just a photo of sangria held up in front of my desktop background.
Pot Luck – Reduce Your Intake
You know what they say: drizzle is the spice of life. And rarely is that statement truer than in discussions regarding port syrup.
A quick Google (other search engines are available) will provide a plethora of recipes for this resplendent reduction – the crux of which as follows: add sugar to port; warm and stir until sugar dissolved; cool, then refrigerate – so we’re going to, albeit briefly, concern ourselves with what one might use the resultant substance for. Here goes. Fair warning: it’s mostly about drizzling it on stuff.
Drizzle it on cake; drizzle it into cake; drizzle it on fruity tarts; drizzle it in cocktails; drizzle it over ice cream; add it to gravy; add it to casseroles; add it to chilli con carne; drizzle it on a goat cheese salad and all manner of other things which you would never consider adding actual port to, but which, actually, now you think about it, could really benefit from just a little bit of fruity umph.
And just like that, the bottle of port you thought you’d be holding onto for the next twelve months is one of the most versatile items in your kitchen. You’re welcome!
