MEMBER’S AREA

hold it!

do you have a martini glass in the freezer? If ‘no’, then What are you waiting for? do it immediately!

If you answered yes, then ‘well done!’ Please read on…

Mar 21.jpg — OLIVE MARTINI

**WINTER COLLECTION: EPISODE 3**
- Broken Clock English Vodka
- Asterley Bros SCHOFIELD’S Vermouth
- Citizens of Soil Olive Oil
- Elderflower Liqueur
- Olive Leaf

ASTERLEY BROS COCKTAIL CLUB

Firstly, thank you so much for being a part of the Club! Each month we post exclusive content and discount codes in the Member’s Area, so please ensure you check back each time you receive the monthly box.

We wanted to create a unique Cocktail Club, different from the standard offerings out there, and so we decided to take a new approach:

We release a new cocktail every month. It must be seasonally focussed and delicious
We only use premium spirits in our cocktails, no cheap products to bulk up margins
We want to champion and showcase Independent British brands in our drinks and will be highlighting products we truly believe in each month

Joe Schofield, our Creative Director, will be designing the cocktail recipes each month and Joe has won many awards over his career working in bars. Having worked at The Savoy in London, and The Tippling Club in Singapore, in July 2018, Joe was awarded one of the most prestigious honours an individual can receive in the industry; 'International Bartender of The Year' in the Tales of The Cocktail Spirited Awards. This was shortly followed by the equally as prestigious title, 'Bartender’s Bartender' at The World’s 50 Best Bars 2018. He is the first person in history to have won both awards. He is also an author, having written the definitive classic cocktail recipe book, ‘Fine & Classic Cocktails’, available on Amazon.

Naturally all these cocktails will contain our Asterley Bros products, so each drink will veer towards being either an Aperitivo (Pre-dinner / Primer) or a Digestivo (After-dinner / Finisher) drink.

Each month we release a unique cocktail with an intensely seasonal focus, to be part of our Spring, Summer, Autumn & Winter collections. We want to take you on a journey through the world of seasons, flavours, spirits and serves that we love, and we want to share them with you all!

Next up…

winter COLLECTION: EPISODE 3

the olive martini

Last up in our Winter collection as we slowly transition into the Springtime, is our Olive Martini.

Super clean, dry and delicate this is an absolute beauty! We fat-wash Broken Clock English Vodka with some amazing Greek olive oil made by Citizens of Soil, along with a little olive leaf and lemon zest, before straining and combining with our SCHOFIELD’S Dry Vermouth and a drop of elderflower liqueur. Light, fragrant, richly textured and ethereal in nature.

TO SERVE:

Okay, we hate to be all preachy about this one, but the difference between a GOOD Martini and a GREAT Martini is temperature! It must be served ice cold, at around -10C. So, freeze your glass first, and get that martini nice and chilled before you pour!

INSTRUCTIONS:

Keep your martini / coupe / nick & nora / small wine glass in the freezer for at least an hour (preferably overnight)
Keep your cocktail pouch in the fridge and then transfer to the freezer 45 mins (for the 100ml pouches or 1 hour for the 1L pouches) before you are ready to drink it. The key to this one (and I cannot stress this enough!) is drinking ice cold, at around -10C
Pour 100ml into your frozen glass
Take your olive oil dropper bottle, and drop 4/5 drops of oil onto the glass
DRINK!

-

THE RECIPE

If you wanted to recreate this month’s recipe at later date, simply follow the steps below…

Combine 100ml good olive oil (ideally from Citizens of Soil, which can be found here) with 500ml Broken Clock Vodka
Add 10g dried olive leaf and the zest of 1/2 a lemon
Leave all ingredients to macerate together for 24 hours, stirring frequently
Place the oil & vodka mix in the freezer for 24 hours in a plastic container
Once frozen, remove the oil and strain the vodka
Once you’re ready to create the drink, combine 55ml Vodka, 25ml SCHOFIELD’S Vermouth, 5ml Elderflower Liqueur & 15ml Water
Chill in the freezer for 45 mins and consume!

Absolutely delicious!

LIVE TASTING

We will be joined by Alex Griem from Broken Clock, for a live tasting on Instagram on Tuesday 16th March at 7pm! See you there?

Add this event to your calendar

Cheers,

Rob, Jim & Joe.

THE MARTINI - A TIMELESS CLASSIC

The Martini is one of the most popular cocktails in the world, and certainly one of the most supremely elegant too! An emblem of style and sophistication, the Martini has come to symbolise much more than just a cocktail. It’s the reference drink for cocktail culture and possibly, the most famous of all cocktails across all categories

THE HISTORY OF THE COCKTAIL

Truth be told, no one knows exactly the origin of the martini. However, there is a general theory that most people have come to accept. The story holds that the drink evolved from Martinez, which in turn comes from the Manhattan. In the early 1860s, people frequented the Occidental Hotel in San Francisco for a glass of cocktail before taking an evening ferry to the nearby town of Martinez.

The people of Martinez are said to have made claims to the drink being prepared by a bartender in their town. A bartender named Jerry Thomas is said to have invented a drink for a miner who wanted something special in exchange for a gold nugget. Since the miner was heading back to Martinez, California, Jerry named it for the city – Martinez.

Another account holds that Italian immigrant bartender Martini di Arma di Taggia invented the drink at the Knickerbocker Hotel in New York City before World War I. His recipe contained dry gin and dry vermouth, in equal parts, and orange bitters.

Another legend claims that the cocktail may have gotten its name when an Italian vermouth maker started marketing their product under the brand name of Martini in 1863, after its director Alessandro Martini. In another account, it was named for the Martini & Henry rifle used by the British Army for 20 years between 1870 and 1890. Both the rifle and the drink delivered a strong kick

The first known written recipe of the martini is credited to O. H. Bryson’s 1884 cocktail book, The Modern Bartender, where the drink is referred to as a variation of the Manhattan. Also, in Harry Johnson’s Bartender Manual, published in 1888, he lists the ingredients of the cocktail as old tom gin, sweet vermouth, orange curacao, gum, Boker’s bitters and a lemon twist. However, there were numerous cocktails with similar names and ingredients to the modern-day martini that were published in bartending guides of the 19th century.

OUR INDEPENDENT BRAND PARTNERS

WINTER COLLECTION, EPISODE 3: BROKEN CLOCK VODKA

Each month we aim to showcase one of the independent brands that we love and have used to create the cocktail of the month.

This month its the the turn of Broken Clock, a delightful sipping vodka made in England.

Inspired by the Georgian English country garden of Shandy Hall in North Yorkshire, this is a delicate botanical vodka designed to be lingered over, enjoyed and engaged with (and makes amazing martinis too!).

the process

Taking 3 years and 3 different master distillers to move from inception to product, Broken Clock lives up to its name! In that time they discovered a recipe that combined a great base spirit with long, lingering flavours, including apples from the orchard at the house where the idea was first conceived.

Botanicals are macerated in English wheat spirit in a traditional copper pot still, and distilled to create a delicate and perfumed vodka, with hints of aromatic green apple skin. Delightful!

BROKEN CLOCK

TASTING NOTES

NOSE

Dewy grass, hints of apple, dried fruit and citrus

PALATE

Rose petal, Bramley apple and baking spices with some earthiness

FINISH

Lingering and breezy, with white pepper and a delightful bitter-sweetness

perfect serve

BROKEN CLOCK & TONIC

50ml Broken Clock

100ml London Essence Indian Tonic

Build over ice and garnish with a ribbon of English apple peel

IT’S…FAINT DRUMROLL………MYSTERY AMARO TIME!

We at Asterley Bros absolutely love the mysterious world of Amaro. It’s a subject very close to our hearts and we have been making both Italian and English Amari* now for the next part of a decade. So we thought we would take the time to introduce some of our favourites to our Club Members!

BACKGROUND

Amaro is the Italian word for ‘bitter’ and Amaro is a hugely popular category of Italian Digestivo liqueurs, usually consumed after a meal to aid digestion. Bittersweet, with a heady mix of herbaceous, medicinal, bitter, aromatic & floral notes, Amari are very much an expression of terroir. The botanicals and flavours found in Amari are hyper-reflective of the regions in which they are made, using locally grown fruits, herbs and botanicals to create complex and layered bitter liqueurs. Campari, Aperol, Cynar and Fernet Branca are all examples of types of Amaro.

*Amari is the plural of the singular Amaro…

-

Our Mystery Amaro this month is:

CYNAR - 16% ABV

THE HISTORY:

Pronounced CHEE-NAR, Cynar was launched on the market in 1952 so it is a ‘relatively’ new amaro-on-the-block (compared to many others, at least!). It is a part of the Carciofo sub-category of amari which are made with artichoke (Carciofo meaning, yes you guessed it, ‘artichoke’! Bravo!).

In 1995 Cynar became part of Gruppo Campari stable and has really started to gain International traction since then. Containing 13 botanicals, it is a medium-bodied amaro which is elegantly balanced between the sweetness and bitter finish, with a distinctly savoury finish. We love the length on this amaro, it really goes on for a while! It’s also at the lighter end of the amaro scale in terms of its ABV and is super flexible when mixed.

TO SERVE:

Very simply: pour 25ml over a couple of cubes of ice, swirl around the glass a couple of times, and sip slowly.

Alternatively it works really well with a light tonic or soda over ice as a lovely aperitivo, as well going well in cocktails. Try in a Negroni as a substitute to the Campari to add an interesting, softer dimension to the drink.

TASTING NOTES:

NOSE: Clean, medium plus intensity with an herbal overtone of artichoke, saffron, cardamom, star anise, white pepper, cinnamon and quinine.

PALATE: Dry, medium acidity, medium body (not as heavy in body or viscous as it’s appearance suggests) with a pronounced melange of spice and caramel with a little chlorophyllic edge on the finish.

We hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

special mention

We wanted to give a quick mention to a key ingredient in this month’s cocktail, the delicious Single Estate Olive Oil from Citizens of Soil.

This little beauty adds so much texture and richness to the cocktail, we hope you enjoy it as much as we do! It’s an unfiltered oil harvested from Lianolia olives on the island of Crete in late 2020. Unfiltered and full of character, you can find out more about Citizens of Soil and their products below:

www.citizensofsoil.com