Recipe | Crab apple whisky

Harvest crab apples from a local wood or hedgerow while they’re ripe for picking and make this gorgeous tipple, which will be ready just in time for Christmas.

Serves 10–12
About 750g crab apples
70cl whisky
5 tbsp honey or sugar
3 slices of fresh ginger

1 Give your crab apples a good wash and dry. Halve them and place in a 1-litre sterilised jar. Top up the jar with whisky as you go. Swirl in the honey or sugar. Tuck in your ginger slices or any other spices you might want to add (a cinnamon stick, halved vanilla pod, cardamom, cloves).

2 Make sure the apples are fully covered by the whisky. Secure the lid. Let it infuse till Christmas, or longer if you can wait. If you can, leave it for up to 3–5 years it’ll veer towards the likes of Calvados. So, maybe make one for now, and one for later.

Recipe from How to Eat Brilliantly Every Day by Abel & Cole (Ebury Press). 

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Recipe | Pimm’s jelly with cucumber sorbet

The fruit cup and all its trimmings in jelly form goes down well at garden parties 

Pimm’s jelly with cucumber sorbet

For 4 glasses of Pimm’s jelly
Pimm’s No1
Lemonade
1 lemon, sliced and quartered
4–5 strawberries, halved and sliced
1⁄4 cucumber, thickly sliced and quartered
8 sprigs of mint
Gelatine sheets

1 Fill each glass a quarter full of Pimm’s and top up with lemonade. Pour all of this liquid into a measuring jug. You will need one gelatine sheet per 100ml.

2 Place the gelatine sheets into a large heatproof bowl and pour a little of the mixture over them so that they are just covered. Put aside for 10 mins, or until they have softened.

3 Set a small saucepan of water simmering and place the bowl on top of it, until the gelatine has melted. Remove from the heat and pour in the rest of the Pimm’s, stirring as you go, then pour the mixture through a sieve into a second bowl, to catch any lumps of gelatine.

4 Tip it into a jug and then pour into the glasses, until they are about two thirds full. Place the glasses in the fridge, reserving the leftover jelly mixture.

5 After 2 hours, when the jelly has started to set, remove the glasses from the fridge and push in the fruit, cucumber and sprigs of mint. Once you have packed each glass with fruit, pour over a little liquid jelly (warm it a little if already set) to make the top smooth and glassy and return to the fridge for a further 4 hours at least before serving.

For the cucumber sorbet

700g peeled and deseeded cucumber (approx 2 whole ones, should weigh 700g after prep), cut into chunks
Juice of 1 lemon
200g caster sugar

Put all the ingredients into a food processor and blitz until smooth. Chill for 2 hours in the fridge, then churn in an ice-cream maker until stiff. Transfer to a container and freeze for around
2 hours before using. If eating at a later date, remove from the fridge 20 mins before serving. 

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Burns Night: Notes on Whisky

Fancy a wee dram, but not sure which one? Here's a cribsheet on some of the best bottles today

The Balvenie Thirty

Rich, smooth and with distinct honeyed overtones, this mellow Scotch malt has spent over 30 years relaxing in European oak sherry and oak whisky casks

Glenfarclas 21

Produced at a family-run distillery, a full-bodied Speyside Scotch with hints of nutmeg, tropical fruit and almonds on the nose, and a pleasant smoky finish

Talkisker Single Malt

Talkisker is the only distillery on the Isle of Skye and they're proud of their connection to the sea. Watch out for the 'lava of the cuillins' - a chilli pepper catch in your throat

Ancnoc 16 Year Old

Pronounced 'a-nock', this is a malt whisky that describes itself as having a mind of its own. Look forward to zesty fresh flavours, spice and a 'stick to your teeth' toffee

Redbreast 15 Year Old Whiskey

One of the few remaining 'pure pot still' Irish whiskeys, its fans say it tastes of sugar-coated fennel seeds, cinnamon and, um, children's cough medicine

Hibiki 12 Year Old

A Japanese blend partly matured in plum liqueur barrels and charcoal filtered through bamboo. Boasts an exotic nose, a smooth vanilla-rich taste and a generously long finish

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Recipe: Smoked toffee apple bourbon

What’s the only thing better than a sticky toffee apple? This tipsy toffee apple brew, especially when sipped beside the fire

There are a few stages to this, but once made the syrups will last a few weeks in the fridge, so there’s no need to rush through it. The first step is to make a simple syrup, which you will then use to make a caramelised simple syrup that will give the bourbon a beautiful toffee taste.
 

Simple syrup

‘Cups’ are used here not in any exact way, but merely to show that we want the volume of sugar and water to be the same, and so you may as well pour each into the same cup to measure out.

2 cups water
2 cups granulated sugar

1 Heat water and sugar gently in a saucepan until the sugar has dissolved, then bring to the boil and simmer until the liquid turns clear.

2 When completely cool, pour into a jar and store in the fridge.
 

Caramelised simple syrup

This caramelised syrup recipe is adapted from Homemade Liqueurs and Infused Spirits by Andrew Schloss (Storey Publishing).

1 cup granulated sugar
2 cups simple syrup

1 Heat the sugar in a small saucepan on a medium-high heat until it starts to turn brown at the edges. Stir with a wooden spoon. The sugar will turn lumpy. Keep on stirring for a few mins until it turns deep orange and completely liquid.

2 Stand back and carefully pour in the simple syrup. The mixture will bubble furiously and the sugar will turn solid. Keep heating and stirring and the lump of caramelised sugar will slowly dissolve into the syrup.

3 When cool, pour through a strainer into a jar and store in the fridge. Eat the pieces of caramel left behind in the strainer.
 

Bourbon

This infused bourbon combines the tastes and scents of the moment. Caramelised simple syrup is combined with grated apple and the whole given a note of smokiness with the addition of a teaspoon or so of Lapsang Souchong tea.

3 apples
360ml caramelised simple syrup
480ml bourbon
2 cinnamon sticks
2 tsp lapsang souchong

1 Grate the apples into a large, sterilised, sealable jar and pour in the syrup.

2 Muddle together and then add all the other ingredients and mix well. Leave to infuse for five days.

3 After five days, strain through a muslin into another sterilised, sealable jar. Leave to drip through the muslin for a few hours rather than squeezing it, for a clearer result.

4 You can drink immediately, or seal and store somewhere cool and dark for up to a year. 

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From the October issue

Seed to Stove recipes

Warming drinks

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