In Spring, this young man’s fancy turns to rhubarb. Follow me through this.

I make rhubarb syrup during rhubarb season. It’s simple, and it’s amazing in cocktails. Any cocktail that calls for grenadine can be rhubarbified. The trick to making a good rhubarb syrup is to maximize the rhubarb flavour in as small a volume of liquid as possible.

1kg of rhubarb, trimmed and chopped

100ml of water

juice of 1/2 lemon

sugar

handful of fresh cherries (optional)



Dump the rhubarb into a pot with a lid, and pour the water and lemon juice over. I find that adding ten pitted cherries empinkens the brew without changing the flavour at all (and let’s face it the pinker the better). Put the lid on, and turn the heat up to medium-high. The water will begin to boil, at which point you’ll want to turn the heat down to medium. After 10-15 minutes of covered simmering, the pot should be full of rhubarb fibres and bubbling rhubarb liquid. You want to wait until the rhubarb chunks are completely shapeless.

Strain and discard the solids. Measure how much liquid remains, and put it back into the pot. If you start with 1kg of rhubarb, you should end up with about 500ml of liquid. However much you end up with, add sugar to the liquid in the ratio of 400g sugar for each 1L of liquid. Bring it back up to a slow boil, and skim any scummy bits that can be skimmed off.

Let it cool and bottle it. A tablespoon of vodka at the time of bottling will help it last longer in the fridge.

And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for; a cocktail…

The Panty Remover.

The Panty Remover

2 oz rhubarb syrup

2 oz gin

juice of half a lemon

angostura bitters

Shake with ice, strain into a glass filled with crushed ice.

Float a couple dashes of angostura on top. (optional)

Garnish suggestively.