The Spirits #78: The Absinthe Lassi

~ Flutterby ~ Diligent Note-Taking ~ Janet Kay, Capricorn Woman ~

~ THE ABSINTHE LASSI ~
(a.k.a. The Flutterby Lassi)

Fennel (or dill, or mint)
c.2cm cucumber, peeled and sliced
40ml absinthe (or pastis)
10ml lime juice
20ml sugar syrup (2:1)
50ml plain yoghurt

Place two or three fennel fronds (or dill sprigs) in the bottom of a shaker along with the cucumber and muddle. Add the absinthe, lime, sugar syrup and yoghurt, plus half a trayful of ice-cubes, and shake proper hard for about half a minute. Strain into a very cold glass and garnish with fennel, dill, cucumber, mint, as you wish.

Some Absinthe Lassi notes:

1. The recipe comes from Gymkhana, Mayfair, opened by Karam Sethi and siblings in 2013, and still one of my all-time favourite London restaurants (another being Trishna, Marylebone, also by the Sethis... In fact, bar Corbin & King, I can’t think of any restaurateurs who have done more for London’s general deliciousness). The Flutterby Lassi - or Absinthe Lassi as I’m sure it was initially called - was a hit on the bar menu when Gymkhana first opened to rave reviews and was later featured in The New Cocktail Hour by Andrea and Tanya Darlington. It is usually ascribed to Sethi himself, but thanks to the diligent note-taking of a certain former Evening Standard cocktail correspondent, I can report that it was actually invented by Gymkhana’s former head bartender, Andrija Klajic.

2. Thank you for the feedback on the Cantaloupe Frappé. A couple of you said: “Hmmm. Will dial back the absinthe next time.” Hence me doubling down on absinthe this week. I used the improbably green Trenet Classic Absinthe, a Czech-style absinthe that takes me right back to Inter-Railing in Prague, 1999.

3. Actually, despite a full 40ml of absinthe (I upped the content from the original), I don’t think it overpowers this unusual and refreshing drink. Along with the French Pearl, this is an excellent recipe for converting the absinthe sceptic. The fresh herbs and cucumber serve to recontextualise all those mysterious botanicals and the yoghurt tames the whole thing. There was an enjoyable thread on the r/cocktails Subreddit the other day about “cocktails that are greater than the sum of their parts” and I’d place this one in that category. It was designed as a digestif but it’s not so bad as a light supper in itself.

4. The original recipe calls for dill, which doesn’t seem particularly Indian to me, but then again, the drink was invented by a Serb. I decided to use the fronds from my fennel plant instead, one of the few plants that is surviving this heat.

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THE SPIRITS is on SEMI-VACATION. You can still expect a recipe each Friday at 4pm BST as usual - but the full service (playlist, musings, links, etc) will resume when the schools go back in September.

In the meantime, I am currently listening to:

🖊️I am Richard Godwin.
🧋My instructions for sugar syrup, ice, grenadine, orgeat, etc are here.
🧑‍🏫 My 10 RULES FOR MAKING COCKTAILS are here.
⚗️ My bottle recommendations are here.
📃 The full A-Z recipe archive is here. 
➡️ Please find a round up of organisations helping Ukrainians here.

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SHOPPING LIST:

Tequila, cinnamon syrup, pineapple juice, lime.

🍍