High Kick

Difford’s Guide
Discerning Drinkers (16 ratings)

Serve in a Nick & Nora glass

Ingredients:
1 12 oz Blended Scotch whisky
34 oz Kummel liqueur
34 oz Strucchi Dry Vermouth
× 1 1 serving
Read about cocktail measures and measuring

How to make:

  1. Select and pre-chill a Nick & Nora glass.
  2. Prepare garnish of skewered Fragata Green Olives.
  3. STIR all ingredients with ice.
  4. FINE STRAIN into chilled glass.
  5. Garnish with skewered olives.

Allergens:

Recipe contains the following allergens:

Strength & taste guide:

No alcohol
Medium
Boozy
Strength 10/10
Sweet
Medium
Dry/sour
Sweet to sour 8/10

Review:

Plenty of dilution is key to this caraway and Scotch dominated cocktail that is sure to appeal to Kummel fanciers.

View readers' comments

History:

Adapted from a recipe created by Arthur Tarling and first published in his brother's (William James "Billy" Tarling) 1937 Café Royal Bar Book.

HIGH KICK
Invented by A. A. Tarling
1/2 Whisky.
1/4 Kummel.
1/4 French Vermouth.
Good dash of Absinthe.
Mix.

William J. Tarling, Café Royal Bar Book, 1937

Nutrition:

One serving of High Kick contains 190 calories

Alcohol content:

  • 1.7 standard drinks
  • 26.77% alc./vol. (26.77° proof)
  • 24.1 grams of pure alcohol

Difford’s Guide remains free-to-use thanks to the support of the brands in green above. Values stated for alcohol and calorie content, and number of drinks an ingredient makes should be considered approximate.

Join the discussion

Showing 6 comments for High Kick.
See discussion in the Forum

Please log in to make a comment
Caspian Berggren’s Avatar Caspian Berggren
2nd May at 16:01
I'm not sure how to rate this. The scotch gets a bit lost I think. I can see why you'd want to serve this with an olive because it's surprisingly savoury. Almost like a scotch based dry Martini. Interesting but don't know if I'll make another.
John CARR’s Avatar John CARR
18th April at 14:54
Wasn’t sure how this would come out but it really works. Super savoury and you must like dry flavours, although the Kummel adds plenty of sugar and body. I used J&B and was happy with the match.
Simon Sedgley’s Avatar Simon Sedgley
6th October 2024 at 06:40
We added 10ml elderflower liqueur and sipped it from a rocks glass with a single large block of ice - for the dilution, as our host advises. We think that this adds floral to the herbal complexity and tames the fierce dryness of the original recipe.
Jeremy Harrold’s Avatar Jeremy Harrold
11th January 2024 at 21:45
My first Kümmel cocktail…intriguing and fascinating. A mixture of flavours; earthy, wood, oil, mint, maybe citrus and liquorice to name a few. A touch sweet to me as well.
Soeren’s Avatar Soeren
31st July 2023 at 18:30
Realy liked it. I am quite fond of Kümmel though. Because of Chris statement that IT would BE top dry, i added about 5ml simple Sirup. Its very boozy but still very nicely balanced.
Chris Dimal’s Avatar Chris Dimal
17th June 2023 at 12:50
Oh no! Maybe I'm too young for this, but it's one of the worst drinks I've had. Super savoury, and mostly not in a good way, unfortunately. It was like drinking iodine-y (probably due to the J&B), herbaceous alcohol. Any balancing sweetness from the Kummel is non-existent.