To mark Halloween week, the Warwickshire producers of St Maur elderflower liqueur have created these fun cocktails to try at home. Perfect for those spooky party plans for the weekend. . .
The Vampire Cocktail Recipe
The Vampire Cocktail from St Maur is a new classic to enjoy as the sun set.
Our fun inspiration for this is the Count who lives in the Carpathian mountains.
It is basically a gin sour sweetened with maraschino liqueur but we have replaced the maraschino with St Maur and given the presentation an update.
To make a Vampire first make the drink, a St Maur gin sour: one measure of St Maur, two measures of gin, and the freshly squeezed juice from half a lemon, shaken with ice.
Then place the white of one egg in a cocktail shaker and add ½ a measure of crème de violette, and give the mixture a vigorous dry shake until it stiffens.
Gently float the stiffened, perfumed egg white on the cocktail.
Garnish with a vampire’s kiss – a few drops of a blood red mixture made by mixing crème de cassis and sirop de grenadine.
Serve and enjoy while the kids are trick or treating!
St Maur’s elder and garlic Daylight Martini
The Daylight Martini is a cocktail we have created uniquely with St Maur, to enjoy at Hallowe’en, and as a counterpoint to our very own Vampire cocktail. The Daylight Martini is a drink to be shared on any occasion, perhaps, when you feel the need to summon the protections of folklore against witches, vampires, werewolves, ghouls and ghosts.
This drink brings the generous elderflower of St Maur, to invoke the protection of the Elder Mother spirit, along with garlic to ward off the evil eye. You can make this cocktail with a dry gin, but we’ve chosen a Genever from Amsterdam to go with the St Maur, as a tribute to Abraham Van Helsing, who had a stake in Bram Stoker’s story, and who was Dutch and, well, from Amsterdam. It all tastes rather good too…
Place two measures of St Maur, with one measure of Oude Genever (or a dry gin if you prefer) in a Parisien cocktail shaker.
Cut half a clove of garlic, peel, remove the tongue, and chop finely.
Muddle the garlic in the St Maur and Genever.
Add ice and shake gently to mix and cool the ingredients. Fine strain into a cocktail glass.
Garnish with a green olive stuffed with garlic, with a wooden spike driven through its heart!
Serve on a mirrored tray, just in case!
Background to St Maur
St Maur is a hand-crafted premium elderflower liqueur from the Heart of England, made from responsibly sourced ingredients and flavours gathered in ancient family-owned woodlands. A versatile, award-winning drink, St Maur is perfect for sipping or mixing. A beautiful aperitif on its own and sublime in brunch and pre-dinner cocktails, any time of the year.
St Maur is the creation of William and Kelsey Seymour, Earl and Countess of Yarmouth, and created uniquely by its producers for their wedding day guests to offer “a little drop of England’s heart” to share and enjoy wherever you are in the world.
On the bottle you’ll see Percy, the brand’s partridge mascot, a bird successfully introduced to England in the 19th century by an ancestor Francis Seymour, the 5th Marquess, and now the brand’s mascot.
The co-ordinates on the bottles will take you to Ladies Wood in the bucolic Warwickshire countryside, and to an elder grove where the elderflowers are picked early summer by the family.
Further St Maur cocktail recipes to try can be found here
