Celebrate World Gin Day with this classic cocktail recipe

If you thought gin and chocolate didn’t pair well, think again. You can make the famous brandy Alexander with gin, which is equally as delicious as the original because its highly adaptable flavour makes it the ideal infusion. Also, using botanicals such as liquorice root, lemon and orange peels, cassia bark, caraway, coriander, cardamom, anise and fennel makes it easy to pair with one of the greatest culinary inventions: chocolate.   

 

Picture: Getty Images

The story of chocolate goes back around 2 500 years. The Aztecs loved their newly discovered liquid chocolate to the extent that they believed the god of wisdom, Quetzalcoatl, bestowed it upon them. Cocoa seeds were even a form of currency.  

Imagine what they might have said about blending it with gin. Considered by some as one of the great retro cocktails of its time, the brandy Alexander is traditionally one part each of gin, dark crème de cacao and cream.   

Ingredients 

50ml Whitley Neill Original Gin  

25ml Bols white cacao syrup 

5ml Monin Orgeat Syrup 

30ml coconut milk 

25ml cold brew coffee 

Method 

Shake and double-strain and top 

Garnish with turmeric dust 

Whitely Neill Original Gin – which received Double Gold at the 2022 San Francisco World Spirits Competition and Gold at the 2022 London Spirits Competition – is distilled using Cape gooseberries and the tart notes of baobab fruit to produce a soft, smooth gin popping with notes of juniper and citrus. Visit Whitely Neill Gin for more information.  

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