I am rather excited about this. Completely on its own, it is a little too powerful both in flavour and alcohol content but over ice, in a martini or even in a forager’s mojito, it is something special. In summer, it would make a very interesting addition to a refreshing granita too.
Ingredients
- 500 g Alexanders, including a few leaves for colour, well washed and chopped into 2 cm chunks
- caster sugar
- vodka
How to Make It
- In a blender, blitz the Alexanders stems and leaves until you have a fine, bright green purée. Set a coffee filter over a jug. Tip the purée into a clean tea-towel and squeeze out the juices into the filter you’ll have to squeeze quite hard to extract as much liquid as possible.
- Measure the liquid, then measure half of its volume in caster sugar and combine the two. Stir to dissolve the sugar. Measure the volume and add about triple the volume of vodka, so the proportion is approximately 25 per cent Alexanders sugar syrup to 75 per cent vodka. Pour into a sterilised bottle and seal.
- Serve the liqueur over ice, with an Alexanders leaf to garnish if you like. Don’t worry about the floaty, cloudy green bits it wouldn’t be the same without them.