Made exactly as specified. It tastes like nothing so much as ice-cold Lemsip (although I usually fortify Lemsip with a good slug of Scotch). But it's rather nice.

Thanks for the definitions. Can you tell us why you still have to be age-checked to buy alcohol-free drinks in the UK? I’m in my 60s so it’s no skin off my nose but if alcohol-free beer is only as intoxicating as Coca-Cola I’d have thought teenagers ought to be allowed to buy it!

Delicious Classic! Variation: Substitute Cognac with a good Calvados, whose fine an dry apple aromas round up perfect with the Chartreuse.
Left all amounts as in original receipt.

Ah, now that’s a great idea.

I like it. Constantly amazed how many things green Chartreuse pairs with.

Really nice drink. I was tired after a long drive so I made this on the rocks in a 2:1:1:1 ratio (bourbon being 2) direct in the glass with big ice and stirred. Lovely. Quite sour in this ratio but both apricot and gentian are noticeable in the mix. A keeper.

I like a regular Gimlet so I made one with 50ml gin, 10ml Bols Zeer Oude jenever and 30ml Rose’s Lime. It’s actually delicious. Just that little bit of maltiness makes a big difference.

Very nice indeed, but I think I prefer this with a citrusy gin rather than vodka. I also think I put in more than a dash of absinthe which is quite easy to do with the La Fée bottle with the integrated spout. Less next time.

Now this I could make and it looks delicious. I love Suze (my wife is called Suze and I love her too!) - a half shot of Suze in a G&T is a wondrous thing.

Back in the Parisian days my wife once brought me a bottle of the then-new Absolut Raspberry vodka. Not having any idea what to do with it I tried a Bloody Raspy Screwdriver with blood orange juice. It was absolutely delicious (much, much nicer than the classic version) and we still occasionally have it.

Now this was delicious, unexpectedly. Rum and Campari? Who knew? Not tasted anything like this before.

It’s nice but not great. A bit like an undercooked Last Word/Final Argument. But I could drink two or three of these, unlike the others ???

This is the *perfect* digestif. Good brandy and Bénédictine. I make mine with 2 measures of brandy to one of Bénédictine, and I garnish with maraschino cherries. My favourite of all after-dinner drinks.

Variations include Canadian whisky (but not American bourbon or rye) instead of brandy.

Try it, you’ll love it!

Yeah, this recipe is good but as always the devil is in the details right? Hendricks never works for me. Beefeater or Tanqueray or Brokers or …. Trad dry… capisce?
Creme de Violette of the best available quality. What are folks using?
Also very nice with Kempton Distillery’s lavender malt liqueur. Potent but yumbo.

I always wonder why people don’t simply use Gordon’s. It was good enough for James Bond! IMO it’s still the best gin for cocktails. The others are great for mixing with tonic, but stirring and shaking - Gordon’s is it.

Simon, do you have a preference for crème de violette? I have three :/ all very different. A Giffard's (more syrupy but is in fact CdeV); Tempus Fugit (from here in Switzerland,gives a beautiful color but a more 'fade' aroma); and one from Distiillerie Salamandre in France. I recall there was an Austrian brand that came out in the early- to mid- 2000s that was maybe the 1st CdeV exported into the US since a long time. Any other brands you like? My violette collection cannot be big enough! :P

I use Briottet crème de violette. Overall I find Giffords liqueurs far too sweet (their curaçao impossibly so).

This really is becoming one of my top
five cocktails. I used Dos Hombres mezcal (the one owned by the two Breaking Bad stars - it’s very good). I just love the sour/smoky/herby combination. Fabulous drink. I can’t think that any but the most serious cocktail bars would stock all these ingredients so it’s just as well I do!

I keep my simple syrup in a glass bottle. I make it by pouring the sugar in (2-1), adding hot water from the tap and shaking; it seems to come out fine. Is there any reason that shouldn't work?

I wouldn’t use hot tap water because we have very hard water where I live, but if yours is soft it should be fine. I filter mine first.

I nearly always add a shot of vodka to a bottle (500ml) of syrup as a preservative. The resulting mixture would be less than 1%ABV. Is this a good or a bad idea?

So, Simon: this idea of the last gin added automatically makes it “preferred”, but that’s not right, surely. I have at least a dozen different gins (all without fruit flavours!) and use them for different drinks. No single gin is preferred over any other in general. I would suggest you let the user decide what the “preferred” dry gin is (or none!) rather than automatically assuming that it’s the most recently-added one.

is the choice of celery gin deliberate? You don't comment on it. I wondered whether it was especially well matched to the vesper over say rutte normal gin?

Now I understand why it says Plymouth gin on mine. But thinking about it, Plymouth would make a very good Vesper, Cocchi Americano being basically a sweet bianco. Must try it.

Very nice drink indeed. Thanks Simon. We’ll put Minnie into the set at our next gig.

Substituting Canadian Club for the bourbon, and adding a squeeze of grapefruit juice, makes this a Randy’s Old-Fashioned, as used to be on the menu of the wonderful Dragonfly in Edinburgh. One of my favourite drinks in on of my favourite watering holes.

It was very painstakingly stirred with the syrup and bitters and a large cube of ice, adding the whisky a little at a time. I always tipped the bartender generously!

Substituting Canadian Club for the bourbon, and adding a squeeze of grapefruit juice, makes this a Randy’s Old-Fashioned, as used to be on the menu of the wonderful Dragonfly in Edinburgh. One of my favourite drinks in on of my favourite watering holes.

It disappeared from the menu for a while but it was definitely there when I lived in Edinburgh in 2014 and 2015. My version as noted watching the bartenders is:
50ml Canadian whisky
1 tsp maple syrup
10 ml freshly squeezed grapefruit juice
1 dash Angostura bitters
1 dash grapefruit bitters
Garnish with a twist of grapefruit zest

Substituting Canadian Club for the bourbon, and adding a squeeze of grapefruit juice, makes this a Randy’s Old-Fashioned, as used to be on the menu of the wonderful Dragonfly in Edinburgh. One of my favourite drinks in on of my favourite watering holes.