Spurred-on by my recent experiences with new gin cocktails at Graphic Bar (and partly by my wife mentioning just how many nearly-finished bottles of gin are on the kitchen side) I have been experimenting with new cocktails. This evening, it is the Salty Dog.

Salty Dog

As with many cocktails, the exact quantities seem to vary by source. I did a  little searching around and struck a middle-ground. Here it is…

Salty Dog

• 5oz pink grapefruit juice
• 2oz gin
• Salt (for rimming – yes, I chuckled at that too)
• Ice

Method: Whap it all in a glass and stir.

Some people say to sprinkle the salt over the ice before mixing, some say to rim the glass with salt. I did a little of both, and not to be out-done, I used Maldon Sea Salt; I doubt it made much difference over Tesco table salt, but hey, the gin deserves the best.

Given that gin can be a very distinctive spirit, grapefruit a very powerful and zingy flavour, and salt very dominating, this turned out to be a surprisingly gentle drink. The grapefruit seems to tame the gin and the gin takes the zing out of the grapefruit. The salt then adds a different type of zing, which has a very short half-life in the mouth; as with any salt-rimmed glass drink, the initial hit is very salty but this soon fades under the gin-backed grapefruit.

I can imagine this being fantastic on a summer’s evening, sat outside in the fading sun. It was pretty good sat inside with the curtains drawn on the humid and rainy summer’s night.