Made in Ireland and spiced in Kerala, India. Maharani reflects the unexpected connections and cultural vibrancy of modern Ireland. For St Patrick’s Day 2021 we commissioned a Maharani Gin cocktail that reflects the coming together of cultures, a modern Ireland that embraces its roots and takes inspiration from around the world.
The responses to our Maharani Mixology Competition demonstrated incredible skill, insight, and creativity and in a series of blog posts we’d love to share with you!
Today we want to showcase the cocktail that suit the winter mood and are perfect to try out around Christmas, New Years and dark cold January Days.
James Campbell’s Baagee Chai (@kingofsoup)
The inspiration behind my entry is quite simple. I researched what Ireland and India had in common, the answer was tea. The name Bagee Chai translates as rebel tea. I couldn’t write the word for Bagee in English so it’s spelt the way it’s pronounced. India is the second biggest producer of tea in the world with an annual production hovering around 1,279 million kg. Ireland is well known for our tea consumption, we are the second largest tea consumer in the world. Residents here need a cup of hot, steaming tea just to get through the grey winters. The consumption rate here is 4.83 lb or 2.19 kg and the drink of choice is black tea. Tea has become almost a right of passage in every home, either your mother, father, brother, sister, cousin’s, uncle’s, cat’s and dog’s are drinking it! And then Just over 8,000km away in India they have Chai. Chai is tea, black tea, but tea steeped in milk, flavored with spices such as cinnamon, cardamom, and star anise, and sweetened with sugar. Chai is a way of life in India. Almost everywhere you go, in trains, on streets, in sari shops, you will see people drinking this sweet, spicy, milk beverage. I chose the chai as I wanted to create a punch style drink, the grapefruit as it’s a member of the pomelo family and a touch of honey to add a little sweetness to the balance. Traditionally sugar is used as the sweetener, I went with honey as it’s sweeter and lower on the glycaemic index. Sip and enjoy!
James Campbell
Ingredients
60ml Maharani gin
120ml milk
240ml water
40ml Grapefruit juice
1x tablespoon of chai mix
1x tablespoon Olly’s farm honey
Chai mix:
Green tea
Cardamom
Ginger
Cloves
Black pepper
Cinnamon
Mint
Method
Add milk, water, chai mix & honey to a non-stick pot and simmer for 3 minutes. Turn up the heat and bring to the boil, add in Maharani Gin and grapefruit juice stir until the milk curdles and strain through filter paper three times. Leave to cool, bottle it up and keep refrigerated.
The inspiration behind my entry is quite simple. I researched what Ireland and India had in common, the answer was tea.
The name Bagee Chai translates as rebel tea. I couldn’t write the word for Bagee in English so it’s spelt the way it’s pronounced.
India is the second biggest producer of tea in the world with an annual production hovering around 1,279 million kg.
Ireland is well known for our tea consumption, we are the second largest tea consumers in the world. Residents here need a cup of hot, steaming tea just to get through the grey winters. The consumption rate here is 4.83 lb or 2.19 kg and the drink of choice is black tea.
Tea has become almost a right of passage in every home, either your mother, father, brother, sister, cousin’s, uncle’s, cat’s and dog’s are drinking it!
And then Just over 8,000km away in India they have Chai. Chai is tea, black tea, but tea steeped in milk, flavored with spices such as cinnamon, cardamom, and star anise, and sweetened with sugar.
Chai is a way of life in india. Almost everywhere you go, in trains, on streets, in sari shops, you will see people drinking this sweet, spicy, milk beverage.
I chose the chai as I wanted to create a punch style drink, the grapefruit as it’s a member of the pomelo family and a touch of honey to add a little sweetness to the balance.
Traditionally a sugar is used as the sweetener, I went with honey as it’s sweeter and lower on the glycaemic index.
Sip and enjoy!
Rui’s Tagores Tipple (@__themixologist__)
Ireland and India, nations intertwined by history, poetry and politics. Did you know? There is a street in Delhi, India named after Eamon De Valera? Well in return, there is also a statue of a famous Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore on our doorstep in St. Stephens Green, Dublin. Tagore is to Bengali Literature what Eamon De Valera was to Irish politics. Someone that WB Yeats truly admired. Being tasked to create a cocktail combining Irish and Indian ingredients lead me to learn of something new right on my doorstep. I hope you enjoy my creation… A twist on the fusion of 2 cocktails created this sophisticated one! I used a fusion of Irish and Indian ingredients in particular on the bitters concept where notes of vanilla beans,cardamon,citrus peel,turmeric root and a few others will bring a new experience in your palate as soon as you start to drink it! The recipe it was thought to bring you on that journey
Rui
Ingredients
50ml Maharani Gin
25ml Mancino Vermouth Rosso Amaranto
15ml Lustau East India Solera
6 Drops of signature bitters
3 Drops Wonderfoam
Orange Glaze Air foam
Method
We will chill first the glass, while it chills we add the ingredients to a shaker. Dry shake a bit first, add ice not full cause we want to create the perfect foam when it goes to the glass. Double strain into pre-chilled glass. To finish put the orange foam together perfectly on top of the drink add the bitters and a little spray of orange and enjoy!
?: @iacob_04
Beth O’Sullivan’s High Queen’s Tea Cake Cocktail (@gintastic_cork)
So I know I’m not a Mixologist but I couldn’t help giving Rebel City Distillery St Patrick’s Day 2021 Maharani Gin cocktail competition a go. They asked for a cocktail that reflects the coming together of cultures, a modern Ireland that embraces its roots and takes inspiration from around the world. So my first thought was to try and take inspiration from a food dish, as being a chef that is my forte and the whole reason for me coming to Ireland in the first place. Then I wanted to somehow involve my home country Wales. As this is a St Patrick’s Day competition I decided the main concept for my cocktail would come from St.Patrick himself. It is known that he is actually from Great Britain, many say from Scotland, however, there is great speculation that St. Patrick is actually from Wales! So I decided to take inspiration from a favourite of mine from Wales, Welsh Bara Birth Cake: which is a common afternoon tea delight using dried fruit, tea, marmalade and spices this is a tasty twist on your normal fruit loaf that’s popular around the world. Afternoon teas was created in Great Britain and is now highly popular in Ireland, bringing together woman (and men) for social events. This cocktail would go down perfectly with a boozy afternoon tea
Beth O’ Sullivan
Ingredients
35ml Maharani
25ml orange liqueur
25ml spiced dried fruit and tea syrup
1 tbs marmalade
Squeeze half orange
Ice
Method
So to make this cocktail I firstly had to make a special dried fruit syrup. Using dried fruits, tea, sugar, water and most importantly the three main ingredients in Maharani gin: Mace, Cassia and pomelo. I boild them up and reduced it into a lovely spiced fruit and tea sugar syrup! Than I combined it with all the other ingredients and served over ice.
We would like to thank everyone that entered into our Maharani Mixology competition. The standards of cocktails were superb, and this competition wouldn’t be possible without your entries. We hope that you enjoyed the experience of using Maharani Gin.