The Bompas & Parr Cocktail Book: Recipes for mixing extraordinary drinks

By Bompas & Parr

Already responsible for giving jelly a 21st-century makeover, Sam and Harry focus their attention on the perennially popular cocktail, the most sophisticated form of drink.

But of course with an extra special twist. Bompas & Parr take us on a rollercoaster journey through the wonderful world of sours, martinis, old-fashioneds, punches and highballs. Classics, new interpretations of old favourites and crazy concoctions are all to be expected, but they also provide advice on the all-important presentation, the ingredients and getting the ice just right.

Veterans of successful alcoholic adventures such as Alcoholic Architecture (a walk in cloud of breathable G&T) and the Architectural Punchbowl (a Robert Adam building flooded with 4 tonnes of Courvoisier Punch enough for 25,000 people!), Bompas & Parr are perfectly placed to ensure you create a range of extraordinary cocktail drinks to remember.

Bompas & Parr’s paramount aim is to demystify cocktails and produce an easy to use functional cocktail book for the home – all you need to do is master a few techniques, assemble a few ingredients and away you go; but as to be expected from them, the recipes walk a fine line balancing their signature, attention-grabbing but considered approach, while offering some predictably unpredictable options. More than 50 recipes are split into chapters on Gin, Whisky, Rum, Vodka, Tequila, Brandy, Champagne cocktails and Punches, with additional chapters covering Cocktail basics; Cocktail techniques; and Glassware.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• Release date: Oct 10, 2019
• ISBN: 9781911641919

Bompas & Parr

Sam Bompas and Harry Parr set up their company, Jellymongers, in 2007 and receive numerous commissions for their bespoke jellies and moulds, as well as constant requests to host unusual food events worldwide. Blurring the boundaries between art and food, they have featured on Heston Blumenthal’s Feast programme, hosted a jelly banquet for over 2000 people with jellies designed by leading architects, created a ‘walk-in cocktail’ installation, a chocolate waterfall, created cocktail ‘lakes’ for their lucky guests to row across… the list goes on. They have featured on many TV shows, including Martha Stewart’s US show, and in the national and international press. Most recently, they opened SCOOP: A Wonderful Ice Cream World (2018) a pop-up museum in London dedicated to the history of ice cream. Bompas & Parr have over 25k followers on Instagram.

Book preview

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ABOUT BOMPAS & PARR

{Bompas & Parr has embarked on some amazing and fantastical alcohol-inspired projects – from creating dense clouds of breathable cocktail that allow you to become intoxicated through your lungs and eyeballs, to building a church organ that could change the taste of whisky through the power of the music it played, creating a punch for 25,000 people – in a bowl so big that visitors rafted across it before having a glass – and creating a subterranean bar staffed by mermen.

We’ve built a giant vibrating punchbowl that mixes its contents with the soundwaves that travel through the liquid, conducted experiments where we sent bolts of lightning through cocktails and served whisky on naked bodies (not totally gratuitously – the age of the whiskies was matched to the age of the people).

We’ve created the world’s first collagen-infused gin (along with its signature serve, the Skin ‘n’ Tonic), brewed a beer flavoured with detritus taken from Roald Dahl’s reading chairs, and had to explain ourselves to the authorities after we flavoured a drink with the constituent parts of gunpowder.

We even conceptualized the harp-shaped Guinness beer tap that is now rolling out internationally.

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HELLO FROM BOMPAS & PARR

OUR TOP TEN DRINKING STORIES

BOMPAS & PARR’S TOP TEN GREATEST MOMENTS IN ALCOHOL

TYPES OF COCKTAIL

COCKTAIL GARNISHES

BAR MENU

GIN COCKTAILS

Sting & Tonic

Pink Gin

Hanky Panky

Gimlet

Negroni

Mr Twit’s Dirty Negroni

White Cargo

Dry Martini

Peach Gin Fizz

Orbium Martinez

Strawberry & Cream Ramos Gin Fizz

Clover Club

WHISKY COCKTAILS

Manhattan

Whiskey Sour

Mint Julep

Old Fashioned

Rose Fizz

East Meets North

Champagne Scotchtail

Green Tea & Grain

Winter Wonder

RUM COCKTAILS

Mojito

Dark ‘n’ Stormy Monk

Daiquiri

Rum Daisy

Nuclear Piña Colada

VODKA COCKTAILS

Corrected Espresso Martini

Bloody Mary

Formula E

TEQUILA COCKTAILS

Mezcal Old Fashioned

Mexican 55

Batanga

Paloma

Margarita

BRANDY COCKTAILS

Sidecar

Sazerac

Pisco Sour

Shipwreck Sour

Iced Tea Club

Brandy Crusta

Yuzu 75

Espresso Cognac-Tail

Maple Colada

Brandy Snap

CHAMPAGNE COCKTAILS

The Secret of Sabrage

French 75

Kir Royale

Black Velvet Royale

Champagne Cocktail

Death in the Afternoon

Soyer au Champagne

Champion Cocktail

PUNCHES

Seafarer’s Punch

Captain’s Punch

COCKTAIL BASICS

COCKTAIL TECHNIQUES

GLASSWARE

RESOURCES

INDEX

FURTHER READING

ROLL OF HONOUR

PHOTO CREDITS

HELLO FROM BOMPAS & PARR

At the beginning of the first edition of this book, published in 2011, we defined alcohol as the universal drug – something that united people and societies across continents and across millennia, providing inspiration and cultural meaning as well as medicinal benefits.

What followed was a riotous, rollercoaster ride around our adventures in alcohol, a no-holds-barred foray into our artistic and commercial collaborations that encompassed everything from ether-based cocktails to a chapter devoted to Buckfast and even a section entitled Getting Drunk on the Cheap.

Some eight years on, the landscape around alcohol has changed somewhat and people, including us, are thinking differently about alcohol. We’re collectively drinking less and being more selective about what and when we drink, set against a context of powerful new drivers for healthy living and mental well-being. Young people are increasingly ambivalent about alcohol.

We certainly have no quarrel with those movements, but in spite of this direction of travel it remains clear to us that alcohol retains much of its power as a social lubricant and remains one of the most sophisticated culinary forms. As much as we’re respectful of its power to do ill, we continue to unashamedly celebrate alcohol’s ability to draw us together. It’s not the only thing that can do that, but it remains a darn good one.

So while this book is an evolution of its previous form, and certainly dials back the crazy in some respects, and takes an altogether more grown-up approach to alcohol, it’s nonetheless a happy hoorah of its finer points.

The recipes in this book all therefore walk a line that balance our signature, attention-grabbing but considered approach, while offering up some choice twists and predictably unpredictable options. We were also minded to ensure this remained a functional cocktail book, one whose contents remained replicable at home.

We hope you enjoy reading, making and drinking them.

Sam and Harry

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OUR TOP TEN DRINKING STORIES

Rather than embark on a comprehensive history of cocktails – far better minds have dived into this more deeply than we ever could – we present some of the top drink-fuelled moments since the dawn of time. We find them pretty inspiring and they have often been used as inspiration for our own style of project and events planning.

1. LORD BYRON’S

BOOT (LATE 18TH CENTURY)

Today most people drink from a glass, some from a tankard and, in some bars, from a coconut or a hollowed-out pineapple. Lord Byron drank from a boot. This was no ordinary footwear: Byron’s flamboyant eccentricity extended to his taste in drinking vessels, so this boot was black leather with a silver-inscribed rim, a silver spur and heel cap, and a pointed toe for a handle. Byron bought the boot from his mother’s side of the family: it was originally given to George Gordon in 1599 and had been passed down the generations.

2. DIANA DEATH JELLY (1997)

One of the most macabre stories to come out of Princess Diana’s tragic death was that a funeral technician working on Diana’s death mask used it to make a vodka jelly of her face. We have no way to judge on