Ignite your New Year and celebrate this Ginuary with Brockmans premium British Gin. The way they do in Connecticut and Philadelphia. And in parts of Chicago too. By shaking up some “Gully Juice,” filling a Collins glass or highball with “The Handshake Is Dead,” or just making some blueberry gin donuts.
Brockmans is no different to other gin companies in claiming to be “daringly different” and offering “a unique taste experience” while not trying too obviously to out-compete competitors on “The age of my copper still” stakes or out-goofy them with goofier botanicals. Apart from its blueberry, almond, and blackberry mix, one of the other things that make Brockmans different is having one brand ambassador: a former goat farmer and goatherd and another who describes herself as “a former Texan, food photographer and time management coach.”
Clearly making it “a gin like no other.”
Michela Zurstadt bartends at the “High George” in New Haven. She created its “Winter Colada.” At “Elm City Social, “former guitar salesman Dan Rek performs riffs in various glasses and “elongates deep tones” in a mean “Saturn” with Brockmans a key essential. Roger Gross created “Gully Juice” at “Sherkaan.” In Philly, in “Encina” upstairs above The Franklin, mixologist Don Suro creates his signature Brockmans-forward late handshakes and his gin and mezcal split base “Gowns, Beautiful Gowns.” The city’s “Tipping Place” serves its “Turtle Bay” Brockman’s cocktail.
The company website features Brockman’s-led cooking recipes like dark chocolate gin mousse, pumpkin and cardamom, parsnip risotto, marinated duck and grapefruit salad with Brockman’s gin dressing compote, decadent Vegan Chocolate Pancake Stack with gin berry compote, and now Chicago-based Greta Scholten’s blueberry gin grapefruit glazed donuts as seen on her inspirational foodie website.
At 61 calories per single 25ml serve, Brockmans makes a classic “Gimlet” more classic and less fattening, and lemon soda and Gomme syrup “Fizz” fizzier, fancier, and less fattening. A “Burlesque” and “Rosy Glow” are recommended too. Neil Everitt and Bob Fowkes, the gentlemen behind the Surrey, UK-Brockmans, never imagined the uses their creation would be put. They wanted their gin to be so smooth and good it could be drunk neat. Not dunked.
RECIPES
The Handshake is Dead
by Dan Suro
Ingredients:
.75 oz/20 ml Brockmans Gin
5 oz/40 ml reposado tequila
.5 oz/15 ml Cocchi Americano
1 teaspoon Maraschino liqueur
2 dashes orange bitters
2 dashes absinthe
Method:
Add all ingredients to a mixing glass filled with ice.
Stir until very cold, about 15 seconds.
Strain into a chilled coupe glass.
Brockmans Blueberry Gin Donuts with Grapefruit Glaze
By Gretta Scholten. Makes 12-15 donuts.
Ingredients:
Donut:
1 cup/128g sugar
2 cups /256g flour
1 3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup/64g vegetable oil
1/2 cup/64g blueberry juice from concentrate
2 tablespoons Brockmans Gin
2 eggs
1 tsp almond extract
1/2 cup/64g blueberries (frozen or fresh)
Glaze:
3 cups/384g confectioners sugar
2 tbsp grapefruit juice, strained
2 tbsp Brockmans Gin
zest from 1 whole grapefruit
Method:
Donut:
Preheat oven to 375F/180C, grease donut pan, and set aside.
In a large bowl, combine all dry ingredients. Whisk to combine.
In a separate medium-sized bowl, add oil, Brockman’s gin, blueberry juice, eggs, and almond extract. Whisk vigorously until well combined.
Pour wet ingredients into dry. Stir until almost combined, with a few flour streaks remain. Stir in blueberries until the batter comes together completely.
Scoop batter into a ziplock-style bag or piping bag and cut off 1/4-1/2” of the corner/cut off the tip of the piping bag. Squeeze a shallow layer of batter into the donut pan in a ring – about 1/2 full. Don’t overfill it!
Bake for 10 minutes or until the edges of the donuts have just started to brown.
Let cool for 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool or onto a baking sheet.
Glaze:
Set two cooling racks on top of a cookie sheet aside.
In a medium bowl, add confectioners sugar. Cut grapefruit in half, juice one half of grapefruit. Strain the grapefruit juice.
Add 2-5 tablespoons of strained grapefruit juice, depending on if you want a boozy glaze (2 tablespoons) or grapefruit only glaze (4-5 tablespoons). Stir in Brockmans gin. Stir until well-combined. If the glaze is too thick, add 1/2 teaspoon of strained grapefruit juice at a time until you reach the desired consistency.
Zest 1 grapefruit and add zest from grapefruit into the glaze. Stir to combine.
Dip the top of the donuts into the glaze and set the glaze side up on a cooling rack placed on top of a cookie sheet.
Continue with all donuts until all have been glazed on one side. Repeat the dunking process once more, either double-glazing the top or glazing the bottom of each donut, if desired.
Famer Winter Colada
by Michela Zurstadt
Ingredients:
5 oz/45 ml Brockmans Gin
.75 oz/20 ml Averna amaro
.75 oz/20 ml roasted pineapple-almond orgeat
.75 oz lime juice
coconut-vanilla whipped cream
Rosy Glow
Ingredients:
60ml Brockmans Gin
20ml fresh grapefruit juice
15ml fresh lime juice (retain the lime skin)
15ml Cherry Liqueur
15ml cinnamon syrup
A small dash of Absinthe
Method:
Combine Brockmans, juices, cinnamon syrup, and cherry liqueur in a shaker filled with ice.
Shake, and strain into a coupe glass.
Garnish with lime half turned inside out. Float on top of the cocktail. Fill with a sugar cube, then add some Absinthe, Ignite & sprinkle a pinch of cinnamon powder over the flame.
Gully Juice
by Roger Gross
Ingredients:
75 oz/50 ml Brockmans Gin
.75 oz/20 ml pear liqueur
.75 oz/20 ml berry-lime oleo Saccharum
2 oz/60 ml blue jasmine tea
.5 oz/15 ml lime juice
half dropper spiced cranberry bitters
Method:
Add all ingredients to shaker.
Shake vigorously until cold, then strain over fresh ice into a rocks glass.
Garnish with an edible flower and a lemon wheel
Gowns, Beautiful Gowns
by Dan Suro
Ingredients:
1 oz/30 ml Brockmans Gin
1 oz/30 ml mezcal
1 teaspoon walnut liqueur
.75 oz/40 ml lime juice
.5 oz/15 ml blueberry syrup
.25 oz/7 ml demerara syrup
4 dashes cinnamon tincture
4 dashes Angostura bitters
2 dashes orange bitters
Method:
Add all ingredients to a shaker along with a small handful of crushed or pebble ice.
Shake vigorously for just a few seconds, until the ice has incorporated.
Pour without straining into a highball or Collins glass filled with ice.
Slowly top with seltzer, and garnish with a lemon twist.
