Lesser Known Cocktail Ingredients, and How To Use Them

This guest post is from our lovely friends at Vinspire.

We can all shake up something tasty to drink at the end of a long week, but one of the best things about making cocktails is learning about all the weird and wonderful spirits, liqueurs and bitters that bring the extra flavour to some of the world’s most iconic drinks.

These days most supermarkets have an array of cocktail ingredients on the booze shelves, but even though they’re more accessible now, it can be daunting to know where to start. Here’s a handy guide to some of those wacky cocktail stars:

1.Vermouth

Most famous for its role in a classic martini, vermouth is a fortified wine which has been flavoured with oodles of herbs and spices, and comes in dry, white, rosé and red varieties. If made well, it’s actually very pleasant to sip on its own over ice, as it’s not generally more potent than around 18-19% abv.

Its aromatic nature makes it a huge hit with a variety of other ingredients. Try it with fruit juice, gin and soda – or even on its own with some ice and tonic. Check out Vinspire’s recent experiments with vermouth cocktails.

2.Fernet Branca

Fernet Branca is an Italian herbal liqueur, also known as an amaro, which was traditionally drunk as a digestif after dinner. Infused with over 40 different ingredients, it has a potent, medicinal taste, and in small doses it really adds something special to a cocktail.

Try a dash in Manhattan-style cocktails, use it to add depth to lighter, gin and bubbles-based drinks, or even just add some to a glass of coke and plenty of ice. For more inspiration, see Lucienne’s fernet branca cocktails.

3.Chartreuse

This herby, spicy liqueur is over 400 years old and was originally created as a medicine by monks – who to this day are the only ones with the secret recipe.

Green chartreuse is hugely powerful (it’s 55% abv for starters) and is usually used in fairly hardcore cocktails, but is also very popular as an addition to hot chocolate at ski resorts in the Alps.

Yellow chartreuse is lighter and sweeter, and probably most famous for its role in the Bourbon Daisy cocktail, but its wonderful fragrance makes it a great addition to Asian-inspired drinks.

4.Bitters

It seems every cocktail has a dash of bitters in these days, and the flavours are increasingly bonkers (bitters flavoured with moisture from Churchill’s war bunker, anyone? Yep, they exist), but they really are very easy to use. They’re also essential for classic cocktails such as the Old Fashioned and the Manhattan.

I’d recommend buying something like the Bitter Truth travellers bitter set, which comes with a small selection of everyday flavours, such as aromatic bitters, orange bitters and celery bitters. Then just experiment with small dashes, from a splash in your G&T to getting more adventurous. Read our post on Bitter Truth cocktails for some inspiration.