You Need To Be More Plummy
or so I was told, in order to get on in Britain
This must be why my daughter, a couple of days before heading back to University, decided to buy a 1kg punnet of plums justifying this to her, ever, over indulgent father with an assurance that she would eat them.
I can’t be sure but I think she ate one before high tailing it back to her friends, forgetting all about the 970 grams of plums she had left behind.
Now, I dislike food waste and there was no chance that the plums would survive until her next visit and so I needed to find something to do with them. The first part of the answer was a plum crumble, which I have to say was rather good, but this isn’t a cooking post so we’ll just leave that there while I dive into the rest of the story which is going to sound a lot like a, well, cooking post.
The plums had played right into my current obsession with turning anything fruity into a syrup and seeing what I could make with it and so, into the pan along with roughly equal amounts of sugar they went. Heat, simmer gently until suitably cooked, and then strain through cheesecloth.
Next a search for what to mix with plum uncovered that ginger and plum play nicely together, and finally, just choose a base spirit that isn’t going to overpower the whole thing, which for me has to be Vodka as the spirit for people who don’t really want to taste the alcohol.
Finally, with a decision that I wanted it to be a light and fluffy cocktail, the Ginger Plum Fairy was born
.
After a couple of iterations I got the balance right and, even if I do say so myself, this is a pretty good cocktail.
Ginger Plum Fairy
40ml Vodka
15ml Ginger Liqueur
25ml Plum Syrup
10ml Lime Juice
1/2 and Egg White or 15ml Aquafaba
Instructions
Place all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake, shake, and shake some more.
This one has a foaming agent in it so you need to shake it enough to create the foam
Strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with a piece of crystallised ginger.
A couple of weeks later I had the chance to make a alcohol free version for somebody doing dry January which I turned into a long drink resembling a plum colored Ramos Fizz.
Ginger Plum Fizz
20ml Ginger Syrup
40ml Plum Syrup
15ml Lime Juice
15ml Aquafaba or 1/2 Egg White
Soda Water
Instructions
You are going to want to check out my post on the Ramos Gin Fizz to get this right, but here goes:
Place all ingredients in a cocktail shaker except the soda water.
Add 2 standard cubes of ice, you are looking for about 20-30ml of total water
Shake, shake, shake until you cannot hear the ice cubes rattling any more so that they have completely dissolved.
Pour about 25ml soda water into the highball glass
Strain your cocktail into the glass
Let it settle for 1 minute
Gently pour soda water through the centre of the foam that has formed allowing the drink to expand to the top of the glass, if you used the right glass.
Allow to settle for 30 seconds
Gently stand a straw upright in the centre of the drink
Serve with a piece of crystallised ginger on the side.
Take a look in your fruit bowl and see what you can be inventive with this weekend!
Cheers!
Sounds great!