We caught up with Harry Jarvis, Restaurant & Bar Manager at Rowhill Grange as our resident cocktail-aficionado, to get his thoughts on what to make from our rapidly depleting drinks cupboards – everyone likes a cocktail after all!

Harry’s Bar – Larder Cupboard Cocktails from Harry Jarvis

So, these larder-cupboard cocktails rely on you having Gin (any!) and for these two, I imagined people might have some fruity liqueurs or Italian bitters lying around not knowing quite what to do with them. Help is at hand! If you have a cocktail shaker at home then perfect, if not you could use your day-to-day water bottle (assuming you can get some ice in it) and then shake it up!

Firstly, here’s a simple fruity and refreshing classic – the Bramble. The larder-cupboard item is Chambord. It’s a lovely black-raspberry liqueur but people can get stuck thinking it’s only good for sparkling cocktails. It’s of course sweet, and a little goes a long way – too much, and it’ll be too fruity and won’t feel like a proper drink.

Classic Bramble

50ml Bombay Sapphire Gin (or at this moment in time, whatever Gin you have left! – you could even try other white spirits like Vodka to mix it up)

30ml Lemon Juice

15ml Chambord

Crushed Ice

Very simply, Pour the Gin and Lemon Juice into cocktail shaker half filled with ice cubes. Shake for 30 seconds and decant into a heavy tumbler and voila!

Next up, is the Italian Martini. Now you can play around with the bitter element to this but traditionally it should be Campari, the bitter orange Italian liqueur. It’s a drinks cupboard staple which until the Aperol Spritz came along was probably gathering dust (sorry Campari – we still love you!). If again you want a good stiff drink rather than a sparkling number, to use your Campari (or other bitters – including the likes of Aperol) then here you go:

Italian Martini

25ml Campari

3 Teaspoons of Orange Marmalade

50ml Dry Gin (any gin will do)

20ml Lemon Juice

Pour all ingredients into a shaker filled with ice and shake for 30 seconds. Flair optional! Strain into your fanciest martini glass – and by strain, we usually would use a cocktail strainer to deliver the beautiful finish of the liquid in the glass, but failing having one, just pour gently in. It’s not quite the same finish but the drink will still be delicious. For your Alexander Moment, peel some rind of an orange using a vegetable peeler, cut into lengths and twirl around a straw (or the like) to spiral the peel. Drop into the glass – not only pretty, but the spiraling will help activate the oils in the orange to release more flavour into the drink.

Cheers!