Tag Archives: distillers-blog

Whether you’re at a party or just kicking back on a sunny afternoon, everyone loves a cheeky cocktail or two! But sometimes a full standard drink isn’t what we’re after.

Plenty of Australians are choosing to drink less, but drink better. Whatever the reason for being alcohol-volume conscious, no one wants to suffer flavourless fizzy drinks or mocktail cordials.

This is where the low-abv cocktail (low-alcohol-by-volume) comes in.The key ingredient to all of them? Our wildbrumby schnapps of course!

We’ve put together a list of flavoursome low-abv cocktails that will keep you present for the party.

Schnapperol Spritz

5.8% abv

The Schnapperol Spritz is cocktail with a fresh, lively character that truly melds the best of both seasons, blending our wildbrumby winter negroni with the deep citrus notes of Fever Tree blood orange soda. It’s ideal for those moments when you’re soaking up the spring sun surrounded by good company.

Ingredients:

60mL Wildbrumby Negroni
200mL Fever Tree Blood Orange Soda

Method: Fill a big wineglass with lots of ice, add Negroni. Top up with Fever Tree Blood orange soda and garnish with a slice of orange and/or blood orange and star anise.

Pear William Fizz

5.0% abv

What goes better with our wildbrumby pear william schnapps, than more real pears!? Pears are the perfect addition to this classy yet simple cocktail. This drink dials up luscious fruit and vanilla notes without going overboard on alcohol volume.

Serve it with a spoon for a sweet pear treat waiting at the bottom your glass!

Ingredients:
45mL wildbrumby pear william schnapps
120mL Soda Water
Vanillin Sugar
Half a Pear

Method: Chop half a pear into small cubes and toss in a sprinkle of vanillin sugar. Fill 1/3 of tumbler glass with the cubed pears and ice. Pour in wildbrumby pear william schnapps and stir. Top with soda water and serve with a spoon on the side.

If you’re after a higher abv cocktail, add 30ml wildbrumby classic gin to the pear william fizz before topping with soda water.

You can find our wildbrumby pear william here.

Donner & Blitz

5.2% abv

We can’t finish this list without including an old-time favourite – our devil’s tongue schnapps and ginger beer combination.

Enjoy this bitey drink after a long day on the slopes or as a summer afternoon refreshment. It is truly a year-round drink.

Ingredients:

60mL wildbrumby devil’s tongue schnapps
150mL Ginger Beer

Method:

Pour wildbrumby devil’s tongue schnapps into a tumbler glass over ice. Top with ginger beer and garnish with a sprig of mint.

You can find our wildbrumby devil’s tongue here.

Negroni Americano

5.8% abv

The Americano, an original low-abv drink, is made with sweet vermouth, Italian bitters and soda water.

Sound familiar? The negroni was invented when Count Negroni swapped out the soda water in his Americano for gin making the drink a little boozier. Our Negroni Americano combines the best of both cocktails – a bit of our schnapps-forward wildbrumby Negroni and soda water. Bellissima!

Ingredients:
wildbrumby Negroni 45mL
Soda Water 140mL

Method: Add ice and wildbrumby negroni to a wine glass. Fill with soda water and garnish with dried orange slices or an orange wedge.

You can find our wildbrumby negroni here.

Peachy Tea

4.6% abv

Fancy sipping on a peachy tea on a sunny afternoon? We do too. Our award-winning peach nectar schnapps pairs perfectly with the citrusy notes of earl grey tea. You’ll never want an iced tea served any other way.

Ingredients:

45mL wildbrumby peach nectar schnapps 45mL
Peaches in Syrup (15mL syrup, 2 peach slices)
130mL Iced Earl Grey Tea

Method:

Prepare your iced earl grey tea by brewing 60mL of earl grey tea. Transfer the teabag and tea into a bottle of cool water and place in fridge till thoroughly mixed and chilled.

Build your cocktail by adding wildbrumby peach nectar schnapps, peach syrup, iced earl grey tea and ice to a tall glass. Mix with a bar spoon and garnish with 2 slices of peach.

You can find our wildbrumby peach nectar here.

It is the question on the tip of every tongue. What do you mix with your Pink Gin?

Just when you thought gin could not get any more popular, along came the pink variety.

We launched our raspberry-infused Rubus Patch gin in 2017, and since then interest in these fruity variations of gin has gone through the roof.

But if a bottle of beautiful Pink Gin landed in your liquor cabinet today, would you know which mixers and garnishes to employ to flatter those luscious fruity notes?

This task is not as simple as many would think, and to find out why this is, we need to go back the very beginning of the Pink Gin story.

Firstly, not all pink gins are the same. Early versions of the drink were created by mixologists combining traditional gin with Angostura bitters to give it a faintly pink blush. But more recently, some distillers have been putting the pink directly into their gin, using distillations of raspberry, pomegranate, or grapefruit — just to name a few.

In hot demand they may be, but the addition of these new flavour profiles can present substantial challenges to distillers of traditional gin.

The reason for this is that the Juniper berry is the life and soul of gin — and must actually be the dominant botanical for a bottle to carry the label of Gin.

And then there are those quintessential citrus notes to contend with.

So how does a gin distiller introduce berry notes without drowning out the Juniper, crowding out the citrus, and inadvertently creating something that can no longer call itself gin?

We think the real skill here is to introduce those notes in a very gentle way, complementing, but never upstaging, core botanical elements.

Once this perfectly balanced bottle of pink gin is ready for gin lovers to enjoy, the next challenge is how to tease out those beautifully blended berry notes in the glass.

Mix with care

Serving up a pink gin should be a simple task. After all, tonic has been paired with gin ever since the British introduced the quinine based drink to its overseas troops in a bid to fend off malaria.

And because pink gin must stay so true to the botanical makeup of the traditional variety, it stands to reason it should pair just as well with tonic as its non-pink brethren.

While we have no particular objection to that famous trio of tonic, lemon and ice, we do fear that this combination might wash away those subtle raspberry notes.

Fortunately, with a vast army of quality tonics storming bottle shops nationwide, the pink gin enthusiast is spoiled for choice, as long as they are keen to experiment a little.

Some pink gin drinkers will add a splash of lemonade or Prosecco to their tonic, and play around with fruit garnishes to help balance out the flavour profile.

If you want to follow in the footsteps of these pioneers then the key thing to consider is the bitter-sweet balance of your garnish and mixer.

A popular rule of thumb is to match like with like — for example using berry garnishes and/or berry flavoured tonics to complement a berry profile of your pink gin. Overlaying new flavours, such as Elderflower, can be a delicious alternative, and it’s well worth taking the time to discover your own winning combination.

As gin purists, we like to pair our own Pink Rubus Patch gin with a good splash of soda water, ice and plenty of fresh raspberries on top.

This brings out those gentle notes of organically grown raspberry, rose, cardamom, coriander and native mountain pepper berry, and never overwhelms the essential citrus-juniper foundations on the palate.

But in the end, you should let your own taste buds do the talking.

SHOP GIN GIN DISTILLING