So summer is officially here and with it come the quintessential summer past times – long days in the park, balmy evenings in the garden and of course a nice tipple to get the party started. Summer is definitely the time of year to enjoy a cooling cocktail, but do we really know what to make, and more importantly, how to make them?

We may love to sip a sweet cocktail in the heat of the summer sun, but when it comes to making it ourselves, what are the vital ingredients? Thankfully, professional help is at hand with top mixologist and cocktail expert Ben Reed – Ben certainly knows his Tom Collins from a Monkey Shoulder.

With refreshing recipes, like the Disaronno Cranberry Cooler or Amarula Frozen Springbok, which are guaranteed to keep you cool as the heat rises, you’ll be able to create that foreign holiday feel, even if you’re not going away this year. So, if you want to develop your cocktail making skills, then log on to our live webTV show to find out how to ensure your party shines this summer.

H: Host, Nicola Bonn
B: Ben Reed, Mixologist

H: Hello and welcome to the Food and Drink Show brought to you today by First Drinks, I’m Nicola Bonn.   Now with summer is officially here bars and pubs up and down the UK are filling up with punters trying to capture that summer spirit, and what better way to do that than by drinking a cocktail?  Now it can seem like a daunting challenge, creating your own cocktails and mastering the art of making them, not only to bring the customers in bars and pubs but also to impress your friends at summer parties – very important.  Well once again I’m delighted to be joined by professional mixologist and cocktail expert Ben Reed.  Hello Ben

B: Hi Nicola, how are you?

H: Thank you very much for inviting me to your bar

B: It’s lovely, again

H: I’m very honoured to be here, it’s lovely to see you again.  Now, what are you going to be creating for us today?

B: Well we’re going to be creating a range of cocktails, just to really show you guys how easy it is to make drinks at home.  You don’t necessarily need a professional cocktail bartender to come to your house and make these drinks.  It’s very simple to make drinks at home.  In saying that I might be doing myself out of a job, but let me hit you with the first – this is the Cranberry Cooler

H: Ok

B: We’re going to make this very, very simply, and I’m using a measure here but you can use an egg cup or a shot glass or anything else.  Obviously it’s summer so we’re going to be fitting as much ice as we can into all of our glasses to keep them cool

H: Yes

B: And use 25ml of a good vodka, this is Russian standard, to which I’m going to add 25ml of Disaronno

H: Ooh I do like that

B: And the beauty of making drinks at home is you can free pour.  Now what I’m doing here is counting to two in my head, which is a 25ml measure

H: Are you sure about that?

B: That’s part of the fun of making drinks at home.  I’m going to pop in a little bit of orange juice.  Nice fresh summer juices.  And I’m going to fill it, top it off with some cranberry juice

H: Yummy

B: The beauty of Amaretto, obviously it’s a liqueur, it’s made from apricot kernels.  It can be served straight up over ice or in a cocktail like I’m making today.  So really, really nice, simple drink

H: And what kind of woman would drink Disaronno do you think?

B: Oh very much the discerning cocktail drinker I would imagine

H: It’s a very Italian drink isn’t it?  I would –

B: It is, absolutely

H: think you know I’d probably want to wear my big sunglasses, pretend I’m on the Italian Riviera when I drink this.  I’m going to do that, ok

B: So there we are, Cranberry Cooler, first one of the day

H: Ok, delicious, with Disaronno.  Here we go.  Mmm that’s very refreshing, it’s the kind of drink I’d want to have maybe on the beach I think

B: There you go. T here you go

H: Mmm gorgeous.  What’s next?

B: The next one is the Cointreau Politan.  As the name suggests it does have Cointreau in it. Cointreau, don’t you know, is the drink for charismatic women

H: So would I be ok drinking Cointreau?

B: You’d absolutely be ok

H: Thank you

B: So we’re using 50ml of Cointreau.  Now obviously when you’re using something sweet you have to sour it off, so we’re going to take a lemon, take some fresh lemon.  And pop that using our Mexican Elbow

H: Now Cointreau, I heard that it’s a very classy drink, mainly because it’s got essential oil of orange in it

B: Yes they use real oranges, they flavour it with real oranges as opposed to any sort of synthetic substances, and absolutely they use the essential oils from the oranges itself.  So very very – it’s an orange liqueur which tastes like an orange.  You know so it’s – as opposed to a synthetic orange, if that makes sense

H: I like that, and I think as a charismatic woman I think that would be very suitable for me!

B: So here we go, I’m going to see if I can shake this without bringing my bar down around me. 

H: This is the bit I love. The shaking bit

B: So there we go, nicely shaken up.

H: Now Cointreau’s a French drink isn’t it?

B: It is, a French liqueur

H: I’m imagining this – my city break in Paris, sitting in a little bar near the Seine

B: So we’ve gone from Italy to Paris, you’re doing like a European tour at the moment

H: Yes I like it, it’s my summer holiday drinks

B: Now obviously when you garnishing drinks at home you can be a bit more elaborate than you might necessarily be if you were in a bar, so we’re going to take – everyone's got a zester in their kitchen drawer somewhere

H: Yes

B: Also I’m going to zest over the drink itself, so again a real orange flavour going into the drink.  There’s a little trick for you, let’s see if this works.  Take a straw and we’re just going to simply run our zest around the straw like so

H: Oh I’m liking this

B: And then just ever so simply tighten up, squeeze, pop it in the drink

H: Oh Ben that’s beautiful

B: There we go

H: This is a classy one.  Here we go.  Let’s have a taste of this. So this is essential oils in this, orange oils

B: Real, natural, orange essential oils. Fantastic

H: Beautiful

B: So again nice, bright –

H: Very, very nice. And the colour as well is just stunning isn’t it?

B: Brings out the –

H: The summer in all of us

B: There we go.  Thank you for finishing that for me

H: That’s really nice

B: Ok the next one we’re going to do is called the frozen springbok

H: Ok

B: We’re going to make a smoothie-type flavour with this. We’re using Amarula

H: Ooh

B: Absolutely a unique cream liqueur, made as the name suggests of the marula fruit, and unlike most of the other liqueurs that you’ll see on a back bar, this is actually the fruit is fermented into a wine first, so it’s actually the marula fruit made into alcohol and then it’s aged for 3 years and then the cream’s added right at the end, so

H: So it’s a good, quality liqueur

B: We’re going to add a dash of Creme de menthe which is a mint-flavoured liqueur.  Again Dekuyper

H: From the Dekuyper family of liqueurs

B: Exactly.  That famous family. Then I’m going to dollop in a nice, healthy whack of vanilla ice cream, so this isn’t a –

H: This is the perfect summer treat isn’t it?

B: It is, yes.  Put a load of that in there, and we’re going to add some crushed ice now.  It is important to use crushed ice in a blender rather than whole ice, because it will damage your blades if you use cubed ice

H: Ok, good tip

B: Good tip, yes.  I’m going to pop it on the blender.  There we go

H: So how do you know when it’s ready?

B: Well with this one, because it’s kind of set, because you’ve got so much ice cream in there but normally you get sort of a gravely sort of rattle, but you can see how lovely and thick this is

H: Actually you could almost serve it as a drink or even a desert

B: A desert, yes exactly

H: So Amarula, crème de menthe

B: Amarula, yep and we’re going to add a little sprinkling of chocolate over that.  And then we’re going to finish it off with a lovely little fresh sprig of mint, now this is lemon mint

H: I’ve never heard of lemon mint

B: You get mint in all sorts of different flavours. 

H: Really?

B: Yes you get chocolate mint, you get lemon mint, pineapple mint, and here we go

H: Thank you

B: Frozen Springbok desert slash cocktail

H: This is lovely.  Ok, give it a try.  That is like – that is beautiful

B: Is that your new favourite?

H: That’s all my dreams come true in one cocktail, absolutely – and the crème de menthe actually really brings the flavour out

B: It gives it some summery freshness and lightness doesn’t it?

H: Delicious, thank you.  So Ben I’ve got a question to ask you on behalf of the publican.com, and they just want to know “what do you think are the easiest cocktails to make for busy publicans, and which will go down best for the hot summer months?”

B: Well as you know well Nicola from the last time we sat down at this bar, one of the easiest drinks to make is a sour, and one of your favourite drinks, I know, is the Decerano sour.  It’s just the simplest thing in the world.  All you need is a lemon and some Decerano. If you’ve got some Angus Store bitters then that’s great as well, but just taking really a sweet liqueur, even the Decaiper range as well, and then souring it off.  So if you wanted to make a crème de menthe sour for example – not quite sure how it would taste – just equal parts liqueur and lemon juice

H: Ok

B: Real simple.  Don’t even have to shake it, you can just mix it up in a glass

H: Nice and quick

B: Simple as that

H: And good for the summer months

B: Absolutely

H: Brilliant.  Right what are we making now?

B: Right this one is called a tantalise and we’re going to be making this with apricot brandy, again a nice, fresh, fruity kind of summery type taste.  I’m going to free pour 25, you can see I’m counting.  I’m going to add a dash of Angus store bitters.  Eveyrone’s got a bottle of this somewhere in the back of their –

H: Yes

B: Cocktail cabinet.  And then I’m going to add a little bit of lemon juice.  Again because we’re using sweet we want to sour it off afterwards

H: That’s the big rule isn’t it?

B: Always yes.  Always to give your drink balance, always want to sour off your drink.  Let’s keep that there for a sec.  And then I’m going to add some pineapple juice.  There we go. 

H: And so the apricot brandy again is part of the Dekuyper range

B: Yep.  Yep

H: Do you think – how many flavours do you think you should have in your bar?  Just loads and loads?

B: You can never have too many of the Dekuyper range because they’re a particularly versatile cocktail ingredient, and again even if you look at the range – at the sour range of cocktails, if you’ve got 10 of these different Dekuyper liqueurs and a bunch of lemons, then all of a sudden you can make 10 different cocktails

H: Brilliant

B: So it’s just the easiest thing to use really.  You know whatever your flavour is, from raspberry to strawberry to mint to coconut

H: Yes

B: You do a crème de cacao as well

H: Ooh lovely

B: Which is a chocolate colour.  So I’m going to give this a good shake.  I’m just going to pop this straight into my glass like so.  I’m going to just add a dash of – make sure it doesn’t end up all over me – of ginger ale

H: Lovely.  Very refreshing

B: Yes exactly that.  Exactly that

H: I was going to say as well Dekuyper is a family run business isn’t it so it’s a nice, trustworthy label

B: Yes

H: A nice stock ingredient to have in your bar

B: Yes exactly.  Here’s what we’re going to do to the raspberry – I’m just going to drizzle a little bit of the old grenadine

H: Lovely.  Oh it’s beautiful

B: Over the drink, and I’m going to take a little piece of pineapple that I’ve prepared earlier in the best Delia traditions

H: Yes I can see a bit of Delia in you Ben, definitely

B: That’s good.  And hey presto

H: Oh that’s lovely

B: There we are my dear

H: Thank you.  Right this looks very refreshing

B: Tantalise

H: Tantalise

B: If you could look suitably tantalised I’ll be happy

H: Not going to bother with that.  That’s amazing.  Ben one more question for you, and this is from the Drinksbusiness.co.uk.  Now - and they’re saying “bartenders are increasingly extoning the virtues of beer cocktails.  Should bartenders continue to push them or should they look at lighter alternatives?”  Ooh I’ve never heard of one of those

B: Well bearing in mind I was one of the first people to make a lagerita –

H: Ooh

B: You know obviously a beer in cocktails is quite a high end concept, and I think people still in the UK are more familiar with the sorts of products we’re using here, you know sticking to the liqueurs and the spirits and I think beer, you know maybe in the future but I think at the moment it’s a slightly advanced concept

H: Ok, well I like the sound of it but yes, maybe I won’t be trying that one at home.  And which do you think is your favourite out of all these?

B: You know what cocktails for me are like my children – I love them each differently every day.  Some days I love that one more than that one – you know it depends how well they’re behaving!

H: Brilliant. Ben thank you so, so much.  Now for information on some of the fantastic drinks featured here today, the place to go is firstdrinks.co.uk and also check out in-the-spirit.co.uk, now that’s in-the-spirit.co.uk and I must add remember to always drink responsibly. Thank you for watching and see you soon