Cocktail & Other Recipes By Spirit Gin Cocktails

New Slang

By Schuyler Hunton
Updated 01/31/21
A highball glass rests on a square marble coaster on a wooden bar tray with copper handles. The glass is filled with an orange cocktail and is garnished with two lime wheels cradling a cherry each, all pierce on silver pick. A green straw extends from the glass, and a shaker and lime are behind it.
Image:

Liquor.com / Tim Nusog

A recent movement that has been gaining traction in the service industry world is that of zero-waste bars. For instance, rather than discard the oranges that are normally zested for their oils, a bar team can char the oranges for use in a sherry cobbler, like they do at Scotch Lodge in Portland, Oregon.

Similarly, Schuyler Hunton—an award-winning bartender and spirit rep formerly in Boston—was tired of watching the compost pile stack up night after night when he was at Tiger Mama, so he decided to do something about it. This gin-based cocktail is made from lime juice, coconut water (from coconuts the bar typically uses to make Tiki cups) and the oft-discarded syrup from a Luxardo maraschino cherry jar, for a tall drink that’s bright, refreshing and easy on your conscience.

Hunton’s use of Bombay Sapphire for his gin of choice in the New Slang makes sense, as he was the winning contestant in the brand’s international contest Most Imaginative Bartender in 2016. A popular gin amongst bartenders, Bombay Sapphire is a bit brighter and less acerbic than its more traditional London dry brethren.

For the cherry portion of the drink, Hunton makes a shrub, or drinking vinegar, from the juice leftover in maraschino cherry jars. However, this is not the cloying, artificial and ruby-red cherries traditionally associated with maraschino, the kind that tops a Shirley Temple; instead, Hunton uses the syrup from Luxardo Maraschino cherries, a high quality Italian brand of candied cherries with no preservatives or artificial flavors.

While the recipe calls for two dashes of a salt solution, that doesn’t mean the drink is salty at all; rather, the bit of saline boosts the other flavors, enhancing the brightness and complexity of the drink. Some citrus, pineapple and a house-made coconut soda finishes the drink as a crisp and refreshing highball.

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Ingredients

  • 1 3/4 ounces Bombay Sapphire gin
  • 3/4 ounces cherry shrub*
  • 3/4 ounce pineapple juice
  • 1/2 ounce lime juice
  • 2 dashes salt solution (3:1 water to salt)
  • 3 ounce coconut water soda**
  • Garnish: maraschino cherries
  • Garnish: lime wheels

Steps

  1. Add all ingredients except the coconut water soda to a shaker with ice and shake.

  2. Add the soda, then strain into a Collins glass.

  3. Garnish with speared maraschino cherries and lime wheels.

*Cherry shrub: 3 parts Luxardo maraschino cherry syrup (the syrup left in a jar of maraschino cherries) to 1 part Champagne vinegar.

**Coconut water soda: Fill an iSi container with coconut water, and charge with a nitrogen cartridge.