TIPPLE TIPS

Salcette's Folly by Beckaly Frank at The Pontiac, Hong Kong.

SALCETTE’S FOLLY

• 45ml Stranger & Sons gin • 23ml red mint cordial • 23ml fresh squeezed lime juice • 2 dashes cumin tincture • fresh mint, for garnish

Method:

- Add all ingredients in a shaker and do a hard shake to chill through the liquids. - Fine strain into a highball glass, filled up with pebble ice. Garnish with fresh mint.

for cumin tincture:

• 200ml vodka • 50g cumin seed - Infuse cumin seeds with vodka for 7 days in a glass jar. Strain through a fine strainer.

for red mint cordial:

• 1 part sugar • 1 part water • 1 part mint leaves • Red food colouring - Mix all ingredients together in a pan over heat and stir until sugar dissolves. Let it sit on a mediumhigh flame for 5 minutes and then remove from heat. - Let cool for 30mins before straining off the mint. - Once it's cooled completely, add red food colouring gel to make a deep Campari red colour. - Store in the fridge. Keeps for a week.

STRANGE TIMES

Crafted in Goa since 2018, Stranger & Sons is one of the few craft gins coming from India, with the country still in its nascent cocktail scene. The dry gin champions locally sourced spices, using black pepper, nutmeg, mace, coriander, liquorice, cassia bark, angelica, and four aromatic citrus peels. There’s perfume from Indian bergamot, and warming notes from the mace and cassia bark, that gives it a unique touch in stiff cocktails as well as this one by Beckaly Frank. Inspired by trips to Goa and a shoutout for travel, recovery and return, she calls it a "revival in every sip."