Tipple | Cornish Wrecker Cocktail

Gather some gorse while out on a walk to create a zesty cocktail that tastes of the coast

These royally good cocktails were served to the Queen on a visit to the Eden Project in 2021 – this is Cornwall in a glass. Makes 1 glass

For the syrup:
200g caster sugar
2 handfuls of gorse flowers
2 drops of natural coconut flavouring

For the cocktail:
50ml Wrecking Coast Clotted Cream gin (or your favourite gin)
12.5ml coconut rum
1½ tbsp lemon juice
1½ tbsp gorse flower syrup
Ice cubes
Soda water
1 lemon twist (or slice)
Edible flowers (we used borage), to garnish

1 First, make the gorse flower syrup. In a saucepan, heat the sugar, gorse flowers, coconut flavouring and 100ml of water over a very low heat for about 30 mins, or until the sugar’s dissolved, the flowers have wilted and the syrup has turned a gentle yellow colour.

2 Remove from the heat and leave to infuse and cool for at least 6 hrs, or ideally overnight. Strain then decant into a sterilised jar.

3 To make the cocktail, shake all the ingredients, except for the soda water and garnish, together in an ice-filled cocktail shaker until super cold.

4 Strain over ice and top up with soda water. Garnish with a lemon twist and a borage flower to serve.

Bartender’s note: When picking gorse flowers, always wear gloves and check thoroughly for bugs. Only pick open buds.

Taken from Time & Tide by Emily Scott (Hardie Grant). Photography: Kristin Perers

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Escape | A rustic hideaway in Cornwall

See, do, stay, love the UK. This month: Charmaine Beaumont-Hammond heads to Bude for a beachy retreat 

Our regular travel series comes from online UK travel guide This is Your Kingdom, whose handpicked contributors explore favourite places, special finds and great goings on.

You can read about one we love each month in The Simple Things – turn to page 68 of the July issue for more of this seaside adventure – and plenty of others at thisisyourkingdom.co.uk.

Charmaine Beaumont-Hammond is a contributor to thisisyourkingdom.co.uk and is a writer, photographer and co-owner of wealdstore.com. She blogs at wealdblog.co.uk; follow her on Instagram @wealdblog. 

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Fancy winning a stay at Bude Hideaways? Enter our competition!

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Competition | Win a stay at Bude Hideaways in Cornwall with i-escape

Cornwall, tranquillity, coastline, countryside, luxury: is there anything in this list not to like?
On page 68 of July's The Simple Things (out 28 June) we visit Bude Hideaways, tucked into the Cornish countryside. Fancy a visit yourself? Entering this prize draw to win a three-night stay there is a good place to start. 

What you could win

The winner will stay in Red Barn, which sleeps up to four guests and a baby in one double and one twin room. One of two contemporary conversions on site, it features white walls, bold art, Eames chairs, Orla Kiely homewares, underfloor heating and wood-burners. Everything you could possibly need has been thought of. 

Owners Conrad and Karen live nearby and are warmth itself – totally discreet if you prefer to be anonymous, but there if you want tips on all the quaint villages, great eateries and beaches it has to offer.

Best of all, their gorgeous seven-acre smallholding is an enormous, safe haven for kids, with large lawns for kicking a ball around, free-range chickens strutting around, even a woodland den to discover – all of which gives parents the chance to relax, read books, admire the wildflower meadow, or simply do nothing at all. 

In good hands

Bude Hideaways is part of i-escape’s hand-picked collection of boutique hotels and stylish self-catering rentals. i-escape’s passionate team is dedicated to helping you find and book unforgettable places to stay, and all the properties in its portfolio are visited and reviewed in honesty.

For your chance to win…

Enter online at thisisyourkingdom.co.uk/competition/bude-hideaways before the closing date, 9 August 2017. The winner will be chosen at random and notified after this date. The prize does not include travel, food, drink or any extras aside from your three-night stay, which must be taken before 1 August 2018. Some weeks are excluded; find full terms and conditions online.

More from the July issue:

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Get hold of your copy of this month's The Simple Things - buy, download or subscribe

View the sampler here.

Escape: Low-season romance

See, do, stay, love the UK. This month: Lou Archell stays in a Georgian B&B in quiet and wintry Penzance

Our regular travel series comes from online UK travel guide This is Your Kingdom, whose handpicked contributors explore favourite places, special finds and great goings on.

You can read about one we love each month in The Simple Things - turn to page 66 of the January issue for more of this Cornish adventure - and plenty of others at thisisyourkingdom.co.uk.

Lou Archell is a regular contributor to thisisyourkingdom.co.uk. Follow her blog at Littlegreenshedblog.co.uk and find her on Instagram as @littlegreenshed. 

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Escape: Island Adventure

An island adventure on Tresco, Laura Pashby holidays at a seaside cottage on the Isles of Scilly

Our series comes from online UK travel guide This is Your Kingdom, whose handpicked contributors explore favourite places, special finds and great goings on.

You can read about one we love each month in The Simple Things - turn to page 64 of the November issue for more of this Cornish seaside adventure - and plenty of others at thisisyourkingdom.co.uk.

Laura Pashby is a contributor to thisisyourkingdom.co.uk. She shares her photographs and snippets of her life on her blog circleofpinetrees.com. See more of her photographs on Instagram, @circleofpines

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The Minack open-air theatre and its inspirational female builder, Rowena Cade

This month, The Simple Things recommends a visit to the Minack open-air theatre, Cornwall. As well as a programmed of acclaimed performances, the clifftop creation has an intriguing history, too. 

If you’re holidaying in Cornwall this month, take a trip to the Minack open-air theatre at Porthcurno. Performances for August include Oh What A Lovely War, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Monty Python and more. Or, just gasp and admire this astonishing creation, built on the cliffs at Porthcurno by Rowena Cade (1893-1983). What started as a one-off performance in the rocky gully at the end of her garden eventually spiralled into a lifelong labour of love, and left us with one of the most breathtakingly beautiful theatres in England.

In 1932, Rowena Cade and two builders carved out a stage and some basic seats in the cliffside for a production of Shakespeare's 'The Tempest'. Lit only by battery powered car headlights and the moon over the sea, the magic of Minack touched its first audience. Performances continued each summer until the outbreak of WW2.

Once the war was over, the theatre was in ruins, but Rowena and her builder spent 4 years restoring it before opening again in 1949. As the years went by, returning audiences grew and so did the theatre, with the addition of seats, steps, walls, arches, pillars and dressing rooms. Since she could not afford granite, the ever resourceful Rowena would carry bags of sand up from Porthcurno beach to mix into cement, drawing celtic patterns into every flat surface before it hardened. Even well into her 80s, Rowena 'The Master Builder' was still doing much of the manual labour herself, all year round, come rain or shine.

Today, the Minack Theatre seats over 700 people and plays host to a mixture of amateur and professional theatre companies, with the main season running from May to September. The tireless work and vision of one woman (and a handful of faithful assistants) has left a legacy which attracts thousands of tourists every year to settle down with a picnic and some blankets, and watch a play set against the backdrop of some of the most stunning Cornish coastline.

www.minack.com

Turn to page 18 of August's The Simple Things for more summer ideas. Not got the August issue yet? Buy or download your copy now.