3/4 Oz Tonic Maison - Syrups

As much as we enjoy cocktails, making our own at home is never quite the same as when done by a mixologist. At The Amazing Blog we always like to impress our guests by making cocktails. So, the idea of creating our own tonics with syrups, playing with the flavours and strength to suit, certainly intrigued us. Which is where we discovered the drinks brand ¾oz Tonic a clever concept for customising our favourite drinks.

The names came from ¾ of an ounce (approx 25g in metric), which is the amount of syrup needed for each glass to make your perfect tipple! ¾ oz Tonic was born in Montreal, Canada where these syrups are handmade with only 100% natural ingredients, they are non-alcoholic and offer a delicious array of tastes and aromas.

There are five flavours in the range, but we only tried just three: Ginger Ale, Spritz and Tonic syrups. Ginger Ale Syrups is one we’ll never tire of. Made with fresh ginger juice, hops, sugar cane and citric acid, this syrup is so refreshing to drink just mixed with sparkling water.  Or to create an ‘Irish Buck’ prepared with a glass full of ice, poured with ¾ of Ginger Ale Syrup, 1 ¼oz of your favourite spirit (Irish whiskey in our case), finished with 2-3oz of sparkling water, stir well and enjoy. We found that unlike shop-bought mixers, this bursts into life tasting zesty and fresh with its sweet warming ginger. This was our favourite of the three.

Next, we have The Spritz Syrup is a non-alcoholic version of the classic Italian-style bitters aperitif. Key ingredients are with cinchona bark infused water, cranberries, grapefruit and orange zest, cane sugar and natural quinine. Your palate will experience some pleasant sourness at the beginning, ending with a dry finish. We also tried Spritz with sparkling wine which were an ideal match. If that’s not your drink, try mixing it as suggested for a Negroni or top it up a notch as a Manhattan! For the classic Spritzer add 1 part of Spritz, 2-3 parts of sparkling wine, 1 part sparkling water and an orange slice (for Instagram purposes obviously!) with lots of ice to finish.

Last but not least, is the signature Tonic Syrup. Unlike other tonics, Tonic Syrup has an attractive amber colour that caught everyone’s eyes. It is similar in its ingredients as The Spritz Syrup; however, with this we noticed had a slightly more distinctive bitterness, which is probably due to the more undiluted Cinchona bark ingredient.  There is also sugar, lemongrass and orange zest too making that quite a dominant taste; NB it’s not for mixing with your more subtle flavoured gins. It tastes raw and punchy with a feeling of apothecary goodness. They suggest adding ¾ oz of the Tonic Syrup, 1 ¼ oz of gin (or vodka) and 2-3 oz of sparkling water on a glass full of ice. Whether you want cocktails or mocktails, these delicious and handy bottle syrups make great drinking partners. We recommend getting your ¾ Tonic syrups  240ml bottle at £7.99 from Waitrose here. 

Løwlander Winter IPA Beer

At the risk of igniting your fire, The AmazingBlog  is going to mention the ‘C’ word - no, not that one, but with a certain type of pie and pudding now gracing the supermarket aisles, we feel we can mention ‘Christmas’ without too many crossed expletives being hurled into the atmosphere. Too soon? Ok, what if we mention the aftermath of that certain season which will be with us before we know it? Still too much? Ok, let’s expand this to a more general point of what happens to our Christmas Trees once they have decorated our homes so splendidly? Recycling is of course the go-to choice, but what if we were to tell you that you can now actually be drinking your redundant branches in a new beer brought to you by Løwlander, in their delicious new Winter IPA ? Løwlander are quite literally bottling unwanted trees and turning them into an amazing white nectar, affording us the opportunity to enjoy the magic of a certain season all year round!

Løwlander we’ve featured before see here and we’re always impressed with their stylish branding and delicious offerings.  The spruce beer is actually not a new concept, but perhaps in our more enlightened times, the sustainability of such a beverage is ever more poignant. The process appears to be quite a simple one - taking the neglected needles off their branches, brewing them up with those stalwarts of the drinks menu, juniper berries and literally turning waste into something extraordinary - a light beer who’s citrus and hoppy aroma naturally recalls evergreen forests, and much more besides. Aligning the perfect botanical normally saved for the gin label, with the pine needles delivers all kinds of interesting characteristics, and at 5% alcohol, we have a libation to suit all palates.

Being around £2.70 for a 330ml bottle, the cost is also something to celebrate, and at the moment only available from online suppliers, of which there are many – give Beer Wulf  or 31 Dover a try, or indeed Løwlander themselves. If you enjoy an evening at The Botanist or Harvey Nichols in London, why not search out a festive tankard, as it sits proudly on their drinks menu. Scrooge would be proud, and he may have enjoyed the prospect of ‘Christmas Past’ a little more had a bottle of Løwlander’s finest been included!

Silver Swift - Spirited Spritzers

Come rain come shine, weekday or weekend there will always be time for a drink or two at The Amazing Blog. If it’s a celebration in the office, then we like to make life easy by finding a chilled spritzer style mixer stashed away in the fridge. In our search for this very type of tipple, we discovered Silver Swift Spirited Spritzers.

Rose Unwin, the founder of Silver Swift Spirited Spritzers, created this when she (like us) was looking for something quick, ready mixed and unique. In 2017, her mission was to make a delicious ready-to-drink spritzer for those wanting a sophisticated British made cocktail. Since then, Silver Swift has already gained recognition by being awarded a silver for the vodka-based spritzers in the Global Speciality Spirit Masters 2018 and shortlisted for the Great British Food 2018 and for ‘Best Newcomer 2018’ by Speciality Food Magazine.

Silver Swift Spirited Spritzers come in four vibrant flavoured cocktail combinations, and each contains a high-end distilled spirit. The first flavour we tried was Basil Blush Vodka which is a blend of sparkling water, award-winning Brittains Vodka (a Doncaster premium vodka), strawberries and fresh basil. The drink has a sweet pepperiness to the finish and beautiful blush tint in the glass.

Tipsy Iced Tea Vodka also contained Brittains Vodka it is light sparkling drink made of gooseberry, elderflower and earl grey. We like the twist with earl grey which gives it a subtle smoky taste and a tang of iced tea.  

Wild Rose Gin is composed Two Birds’ Old Tom Gin, sparkling water, blackberry and raspberry, rose and a dash of lemon. I think this was our favourite we liked the lingering floral rose flavour.

Lastly, Orchard Pear Gin Tonic is a new addition to the spritzers range. As the name suggests, it is made up of sparkling tonic water, a juicy pear and elderflower with a dash of lemon. The drinks are best served chilled or over ice with bits and pieces of real fruit and a slice of lemon. It reminded us of a classic ‘Gin Fizz’ with a shot of elderflower.

Make no mistake, these Silver Swift drinks are no ordinary spritzer drinks. The drinks are low in calories (from 85 to the highest of 98), they are made with country garden flavours, vegan free from gluten and other nasties and are made with Britain’s award-winning spirits. You’ll also be glad to know that each of their drinks only has a low alcoholic percentage of just 5% abv. These four drinks not only look pretty they are very palatable and unusual, we think they’re great for drinking alone or pairing with food. The bottles are 250ml  with a price point of £2.55 each, to purchase see here, Cheers!

Smith & Sinclair - Lick Your Sent

Anyone else has a bathroom drawer full of half used perfumes? At The Amazing Blog, we all came to the conclusion that it can take years of accumulating different scents (even layering them) before you find your true signature fragrance. However, we tracked down Smith & Sinclair who have given us the most fun fragrance of the season! Regular readers may remember that we featured the Smith & Sinclair Cocktail Pastilles, It would seem that Smith & Sinclair have endless creative ideas, bringing us the craziest innovations. This time is edible fragrance. Yes, you read it right; their line of products Lick Your Scent which certainly made our heads turn in the office.

Smith & Sinclair describe themselves as, “alcohol and confectionery innovators, or the Willy Wonka for grown-ups,” and we think they couldn’t have phrased it better. It all started with Mel and Emile, the founders of Smith & Sinclair. A while back, they hosted a series of single events and they noticed that instead of falling in love with each other, people were falling in love with the alcoholic confectionery they were offering. Bingo! Out of trying to bring people together for love, they created Smith & Sinclair, to bring people together through new ways of sharing.

Featured in the Sunday Times, You Magazine, and Cosmopolitan, among other outlets, Smith & Sinclair are revolutionising the beauty and beverage industry. Their edible fragrances are crafted to up your “cocktail” game. “Cocktail” in quotation marks because the Lick Your Scent range is not only designed to liven up your fragrance but tantalise the taste buds, as they are also lickable! Different, you might say…. You can pick from a range of flavours: Pear & Vanilla, Cherry Blossom & Mandarin, or Watermelon & Citrus.

We chose the Pear & Vanilla scent because it works perfectly for autumn. Fear not, even though it is edible, it’s not sticky, the formula is created to be suitable to spray it on your skin as well as flavouring your drinks. The main ingredients are: Vodka (30%), calvados (30%) - this means it is an adult’s fragrance, it can only be purchased if you are over the age of 18 - citric acid, glycerine and pear and vanilla natural flavouring, making it 100% vegan. The question is do you store it in the bathroom or the kitchen? With the fruity and flowery scent/taste and bright packaging, your bathroom drawer will certainly now have a new addition with a difference. Set the trend this autumn and purchase your 50ml edible fragrance here for only £10. Warning: Please lick responsibly.

Holly Golightly Cider from Celtic Marches

Today we unashamedly revisit our friends over in Herefordshire at Celtic Marches in fact The Amazing Blog previously featured their delicious Thundering Molly Cider way back in 2014! Today they have now come up with another hugely tempting bottle, only this time with one of the most iconic images of cinematic history: Holly Golightly. 

Any fans of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, brace yourselves for something very special indeed, today we are focusing on the heroine of that movie herself - the fabulously complicated and utterly beguiling Holly Golightly. The image is unmistakeable - perfect undo coiffed to perfection, the long black gloves, little black dress and the Audrey Hepburn pout jumps out at you from the label, making a beeline for our shopping basket. 

Standing alongside such diverse characters as Loubi Lou, and Nell Gwynne, Holly Golightly is no doubt going to make her mark in the drinks cabinet, just as she did on screen, but at just 0.5%ABV, her low alcohol content comes out as far more virtuous! Having said that, this is no wishy-washy concoction, but rather a full-flavoured medium cider, as you would expect from 100% pressed cider apples - suitable for vegans and no gluten makes this a sure fire winner across the board. Available in bottles, and cans, cases of 12 can be purchased for just £22.99 here, where the complete range and all the other characters that Celtic Marches have created, are just waiting to be discovered. Now all we need is our wrought iron fire escape, ‘Cat’ to brush past us and ‘Moon River’ playing in the background, and we can have ourselves an evening of unadulterated movie nostalgia … relax and enjoy!