Pink Gin with a New Twist!
I eat grapefruit almost every morning during Spring, Fall, and Winter. We keep the fruit on the windowsill where the golden orbs bring a little sunshine into our kitchen on cold, gray days.
An additional benefit of having grapefruit around is the zest or skin of the fruit. At Al Forno we make candied grapefruit peel for the Grand Cookie Finale. At home, I’ve been adding it to cocktails that usually call for a lemon or an orange twist.
Here is the latest. It is a combination of George’s favorite drink, Pink Gin, with a generous swath of grapefruit peel. Let’s call it Twisted Pink Gin.
For 1 cocktail, pour 2 to 3 ounces of gin in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Add 6 drops of Angostura bitters (or your favorite--Peychaud bitters are delicious and work well in this drink, too). Stir until very cold. Strain into a martini glass and add a few cubes of ice from the shaker. With a sharp vegetable peeler, cut a long, fat piece of peel from a grapefruit. Squeeze the peel over the Pink Gin to spritz it with citrus oil and drop the peel into the drink. Mmmmmm.
To read about the original Pink Gin, pick up a copy of Jennifer Brennan’s memoir with recipes, Curries and Bugles. Check it out on Amazon:
That’s where George found the recipe. It’s from the days of British rule in India. George tweaked the formula to 6 drops of bitters rather than Jennifer’s suggestion of 6 dashes.
You may enjoy reading this article in the Economic Times with Jennifer’s recipe from “the Expert” with more info on bitters:
