Seventh Heaven

Drinks with citrus fruit are always refreshing and as such appropriate in sunny seasons. Why not go old-school and try this cocktail from the late 1920s? If you appreciate earthy and delicately bitter notes in your drink, this combination of a liqueur based on maraschino cherries and fresh pink grapefruit juice is seventh heaven.

4 cl gin

2 cl Luxardo

2 cl pink grapefruit juice

Shake the ingredients with ice. Strain into an elegant glass. Some people garnish it with a mint sprig.

The Seventh Heaven cocktail appears in Harry Craddock's famed book from 1930, The Savoy Cocktail Book. His recipe is by some bartenders called the French version, and instead of grapefruit it uses a now little known South African vermouth called Caperitif. The recipe given here is known as the English version. In this version the ratio of the ingredients moves up and down. If you prefer a gin-forward drink add less maraschino liqueur and grapefruit juice. If the drink is too sour, go easy on the grapefruit juice.

Source: O. Blunier, The Barkeeper's Golden Book, Zurich 1935.

Milanese G&T

Gin and tonic is an all-time favourite and probably the most well known of all mixed drinks. And its popularity keeps rising with the appearance of small batch craft gins produced in almost every country in the developed world today. If you want to up the ante when inviting friends over for a drink on a sunny afternoon, you should try this version with the bitter Italian amaro from Milano, Campari. It adds spicy and herbal notes to supplement the botanicals from the gin and quinquina from the tonic water.

3 cl gin

3 cl Campari

Tonic water

A few drops of lime juice

Add the Campari and gin to a tall glass filled with ice, top with tonic water. Squeeze a few drops out of a lime and garnish with a lime wedge.

Source: Joe St Clair-Ford, co-owner of a recently opened club and bar in Soho, London, called Disrepute, 2017

Water Lilly

Crème de violette (violet liqueur) is an aromatic experience, especially if you give it some space. And that is what this take on the classic Aviation Cocktail does. Leave out Luxardo cherry liqueur, add Cointreau instead, use equal measures, and you get the Water Lilly.

The drink is a sour with strong floral and fruity notes. It's like a White Lady with flowers in her hair. A charming, afternoon drink and aperitif.

2 cl gin

2 cl Cointreau

2 cl crème de violette

2 cl lemon juice

Shake the ingredients with ice. Strain into a coupe glass. If you must, garnish with an orange twist.

The drink was created by Richard Boccato in New York 2007.

Pall Mall Martini

Need a cocktail without the sour element? Try this old-school cocktail that shows you what a cocktail was like in the 1920s. It's a perfect martini with a gentle hint of chocolate and orange bitters. By the way, a perfect martini is a martini that combines sweet and dry vermouth.

3 cl gin

3 cl sweet vermouth

3 cl dry vermouth

0.5 cl white crème de cacao

1 dash orange bitters

Shake the ingredients with ice, and strain into a coupe glass.

The recipe is found in Harry Craddock's famed book, The Savoy Cocktail Book, from 1930. Mr. Craddock bartended the American Bar at the Savoy Hotel, London, from 1920 to 1938. 

A later version of the Pall Mall uses white crème de menthe, taking the drink in another direction altogether.

Aviation Cocktail

Violets are synonymous with spring, and this cocktail gets its pale blue colour from a violet liqueur, in French called crème de violette. Think cherries and violets, and you are on the right track. Add lemon juice and you've got an aromatic and a pleasingly floral, perfumed drink that is not too sweet and lets the gin perform its wonders.

The Aviation cocktail was conceived in New York during the first decade of the twentieth century by a bartender at the Hotel Wallick called Hugo Ensslin.

Crème de violette was created when the Decadent Movement was its peak in the final decades of the 19th century. That's why its colour signals fin-de-siècle decadence.

3.5 cl gin

1 cl Luxardo cherry liqueur

0.5 cl crème de violette

1 cl lemon juice

Shake the ingredients with ice. Strain into a cocktail glass.

Buying a bottle of crème de violette may take you quite some time. You can get the same colouring from Crème Yvette or Parfait Amour, but the flavours are different.

Red Moon over Manhattan

Before starting on the lighther drinks of spring, let's try a drink that has red wine as its main protagonist with bourbon in a minor role. The result is a relaxed, low-alcohol libation that works well any time of day. Surprisingly, the red wine highlights the pleasing, aromatic make-up of bourbon.

As the name indicates, this is a take on the classic Manhattan cocktail which blends bourbon (or rye) whiskey with sweet vermouth and angostura bitters.

6 cl red wine

1.5 cl bourbon whiskey

1.5 cl simple syrup

Shake the ingredients with ice and strain into a glass of your choice. If you find the drink too sweet, go easy on the simple syrup. 

The Green Fairy

With spring round the corner it's time to dust off the bottles that were put away last autumn. What better way to evoke memories of spring than a pastis, the absinthe-like spirit from France taken with plain water as an afternoon apéritif.

The late Dick Bradsell, renowned London bartender, turned the casual long drink into a classy cocktail by using real absinthe and adding lemon juice and Angostura. The additions subdue the strong flavour of anise and create a perfect blend of aromatic notes.


3 cl absinthe


3 cl water


4.5 cl fresh lemon juice


2 teaspoon sugar


Dash Angostura Bitters

Shake the ingredients with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

The name of the cocktail is a translation of la Fée Verte, a nickname for absinthe.

Pastis, like Pernod or Ricard, was created in 1932 as a substitute for absinthe which had acquired a reputation for causing madness because of its wormwood component. So pastis doesn't contain wormwood and sugar is added, making it a liqueur. Absinthe has no sugar added in the processing and the bottled strength is usually 60%+.