We love a garnish at Muddled, and wholeheartedly encourage you to spend those few minutes creating your own. The fruit or herbs you use really do add to the flavour of your drink, and remember there are no rules! You love cherries? Add as many as you like. Extra Lemon? Add a slice and a twist for a bright shot of citrus oil.
As a basic armoury, all you need is a nice sharp paring knife and a vegetable peeler – plus of course some fancy cocktail picks. You can also use scissors for clean trimming.
The citrus wheel does exactly what it says on the tin, it’s the simplest to cut and it always looks great inside the glass or over the rim. Cut in half for citrus slices when you want more than pop of colour, and cut the fruit into citrus wedges when you want extra juice to squeeze into your drink.
Citrus twists are the most stylish garnish for cocktails like a Negroni and a Martini, the ‘twist’ coming from the action of twisting the peel over the surface, releasing the delicious citrus oils.
To make a citrus twist, use your sharp knife or a vegetable peeler to remove a long, wide piece of peel (not too much pith, it can be bitter!). Use the knife or scissors to neatly shape the peel – now its ready to twist across your drink, and even run around the rim for extra citrussy blast. Drop into the drink and enjoy.
You can also wrap a long thin strip of peel around a chopstick or skewer and leave it for a few minutes to create a classic spiral twist.
As we said, there are no rules – use herbs as well as fruit and vegetables – muddle/crush herbs to release the flavours, or garnish with sprigs for a more subtle taste. Use your peeler to create cucumber ribbons, which can be rolled and zig-zagged onto cocktail picks, or used to line the inside of a glass with great effect.
We also like to experiment with pickling herbs and vegetables for using in drinks such as a Martini - they look great and the sweet/sour pickle adds an extra zing. Plus we’re pretty sure it contributes in some small way to your five-a-day.
The only ‘rule’ we subscribe to is the law of odd numbers – particularly if using cherries, blueberries or raspberries etc. Below are some pictures which show some of our favourite in-house garnishes, some simple, some a bit more fancy.
Comments