grow your own way

get started growing herbs

Scented, flavoursome and adorned with beautiful flowers, herbs are an essential ingredient for any cocktail list this summer. Alice Lascelles digs deep...

It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it. It’s a gloriously sunny day and I’m standing on the roof garden of the Trafalgar Hotel, looking out over the London skyline and inhaling the scent of a multitude of herbs and flowers which are bursting forth from planters and pots all around me. Rosemary, marjoram, oregano, lavender, bay, basil, Thai basil, sweet basil, lemon thyme, garden thyme, apple mint, chocolate mint, garden mint, eau-de-cologne mint, lemon balm, borage, dill, chives, sage and carnations are all just a pinch away in this newly created space which doubles as a kitchen garden and open-air extension of the Rockwell bar below.

HERBAL HIGH

Kitted out with squashy white sofas, white marble tables and a chrome bar, the Rockwell roof garden is more akin to a chic Italian terrace than an English country garden – about the only rural hazard here is one very sleepy bumble bee. Perfect, in short, for the well-heeled clientele.

‘We open at 4pm everyday and by 4.15pm, if the weather’s good, it’s always packed,’ says bar manager Luke O’Toole as he plucks a lavender flower to garnish a cocktail.

The mastermind behind the Rockwell terrace is Jekka McVicar, dubbed ‘Queen of Herbs’ by Jamie Oliver and one of Rick Stein’s Food Heroes – for her tips on getting started see the box below.

But even those without the assistance of a top-flight horticulturalist are getting in on the gardening act – at the Urban Beach Hotel in Bournemouth, general manager James Fowler has cultivated a huge variety of cocktail-friendly plants ranging from thyme, mint and coriander to alpine strawberries, gooseberries and horseradish. ‘At the moment I’m infusing the horseradish in vodka, which I’ll then use in one of our range of Bloody Marys,’ says Fowler. ‘We have a Jerk Bloody Mary made with bay and thyme, a Thai Bloody Mary made with fresh coriander and an Italian Bloody Mary made with oregano, basil and marjoram. And we also grow wild celery which we use as garnish for dipping into
your Bloody Mary.’

‘Mint is really easy to grow

and can take over if you’re not

careful’ – James Fowler

Lavender, meanwhile, is mixed with gin, or used in the bar’s homemade cola syrup, while pretty blue borage flowers (which Crusaders used to add to wine to give them courage) are used to impart a characteristic cucumber flavour to punches.

‘Technically speaking a lot of these are just weeds,’ says Fowler. ‘Like mint for example, which is really easy to grow and can just completely take over if you’re not careful. If you’re just starting out, rosemary is another good one – you’d struggle to kill a rosemary plant and you can use it all year round.’

At Edinburgh’s newest cocktail bar Bond No.9, they’ve made herbs an attractive feature of the back bar by planting them up in Julep tins and ice buckets. ‘I think it looks nice, but also when people see all these fresh herbs on the bar they know there’s been some attention to detail,’ says co-owner Chris Flint. When it comes to keeping his herbs in good nick, Flint describes a misting bottle as ‘essential – just give them a mist at the end of the night and they’ll stay fresher for longer. Also if they’ve been picked a lot after a heavy night I find giving them a bit of Baby Bio helps them recover faster.’

MINTED

But there is one herb that no bar seems to be able to grow enough of, and that, of course, is mint. At Callooh Callay in London’s Shoreditch, their mint stocks are kept topped up with a little help from Soulfoods, an off-shoot of Soulshakers (tel: 020 8995 0140/07940 651304), which supplies them with black mint from Cuba: ‘I believe it’s what the original Mojito was made with,’ says bar manager Sean Ware. ‘It’s got really big leaves and is very crisp and fresh.’

Callooh Callay also makes use of the much-maligned nettle by turning it into a cordial made from nettle tips boiled down with blackberry leaves, a little citric acid, ginger and sugar (although they admit Soulfoods does the sting-y picking bit for them). The result is then used in a champagne cocktail with fresh blackberries.

Their bestseller, however, is The Lazy Mexican, a more savoury affair that mixes the flavours of tequila, oregano and roasted red peppers (see recipe box).

The vegetal/herbal characters of tequila make it a particularly good spirit for pairing with herbs and Ware is now gearing himself up to create a recipe pairing Don Julio with chives (possibly a match one should avoid on a first date). Chives are also on the cocktail menu at Bond No.9, where Chris Flint has created a chive-enhanced gin cocktail (see box), which is not so strange, I suppose, when one considers the onion-garnished Gibson Martini.

One plant I am surprised never to have seen on a cocktail list is the nasturtium. A doddle to grow, and boasting delicious peppery leaves and gorgeous edible flowers in hot reds, oranges and yellows, it’s crying out to be used in a Bloody Mary, both in the glass and as a garnish. If anyone can come up with a good recipe I swear that I’ll buy them a drink (chives optional).

For a really expert opinion, aspirant herb growers should consult the Royal Horticultural Society Encyclopaedia of Herbs (Dorling Kindersley, RRP £30) which is, according to Jan Greenland of The Herb Society, generally regarded as ‘the Bible’. As well as advice on the identification, cultivation and uses of herbs, it also highlights any that may be poisonous, ‘which is of course terribly important,’ muses Greenland. ‘For example, Sweet Cicely, which is edible, looks very like Hemlock, which is deadly poisonous.’

If that hasn’t put you off, then further inspiration and advice can also be found at The Herb Society’s website www.herbsociety.co.uk, which is full of useful links, tips and recipes – on my last visit, nettle tea, horse chestnut tincture, hawthorn liqueur and dog rose syrup were all on the menu. And on that note, I’m off to water my window-boxes…

Many thanks to Rockwell at The Trafalgar for hosting the shoot

Get started growing herbs
Queen of herbs Jekka McVicar gives us her top tips:

Plants from the supermarket are only designed to last three days. For growing, get your plants from a garden centre.
Plant your herbs in containers that are easy to look after, and make sure they have a good layer of gravel for drainage in the bottom.
Think about the location – for example, a roof garden, which can be very exposed with high winds, can be a very drying situation.
Have a strict watering regime – I can’t stress that enough. Water first thing in the morning, ideally using a watering can, aiming the water at the soil.
Feed once a week. We use Maxicrop, an organic liquid feed good for encouraging leaves rather than flowers.
Choose herbs that you like. Mint is easy to grow and comes in lots of different varieties and flavours; Alpine strawberries look gorgeous in drinks; an aniseed plant such as French tarragon, and edible flowers such as wild pansies; and seeds such as fennel. Purple basil is also lovely torn into champagne.
Pick from the top not the sides, to encourage bushy growth.

www.jekkasherbfarm.com

Garden cocktails
We harvest the pick of top herbal cocktail recipes from gardener-bartenders around the country

THE HERB GARDEN
James Fowler, Urban Beach Hotel, Bournemouth

50ml Zuborowka Bison Grass vodka
Fresh mint
Fresh coriander
25ml lemon juice
Homemade coriander seed and lemon gomme

Method: Preparation and presentation similar to a Mojito.

HAY, NOW WE’RE REALLY LIVING
Chris Flint, Bond No.9, Edinburgh

Glass: Pontarlier glass

Garnish: Chive bail

8 strands fresh green chives
37.5ml Haymans Old Tom gin
10ml Velvet Falernum
10ml Cockburns light white port
25ml fresh pressed apple juice
10ml fresh lemon juice

Method: Chop chives into 1cm long strands and gently press at base of boston glass, add all other ingredients and shake with ice. Strain into ice-filled Pontarlier glass and garnish with ‘chive bale’ (6-7 chive strands cut into inch-long strips, bundled and tied with a final chive strand).

THE LAZY MEXICAN
Callooh Callay, London

Glass: Rocks

Garnish: Sugar and paprika rim

50ml El Jimador Reposado tequila
25ml lemon Juice
15ml roasted red pepper
and oregano syrup*

* Roast some red peppers, skin and purée. Strain into a ‘tea’ made from infusing fresh oregano in hot water, add sugar and reduce over heat to a syrup.

Method: Shake with ice and strain into ice-filled Rocks glass.

VX-CELLENT
Rob Poulter, Mix Bar, Reading

Glass: Cocktail

2 x 1 inch cubes fresh, ripe
pineapple (muddled)
50ml Appleton V/X
25ml lime juice
15ml rosemary-infused syrup

Method: Shake with cubed ice and fine strain into glass.

JAMAICAN POT PUNCH
Oggy Damjanovic, Angel’s Share, Leeds

Glass: Collins or suitable tiki variant

Garnish: Pineapple and basil leaf

25ml Wray & Nephew overproof rum
25ml Myers Jamaican dark rum
25ml orange juice
4 chunks of fresh pineapple
Twist of black pepper
25ml lime juice
4 leaves of basil
12.5ml of passion fruit syrup
12.5ml of grenadine

Method: Muddle pineapple in a Boston glass. Add pepper, basil, passion fruit syrup and lime juice. Gently muddle. Add the rums and orange juice and shake. Fine strain into a Collins filled with ice. Drizzle grenadine on top and add garnish.

ROCKWELL PEAR-FECTION
Luke O’Toole, The Rockwell, London

Glass: Martini

Garnish: Pear slice

1 whole ripe pear (cored, quartered)
50ml Akvinta Vodka
12.5ml lemon juice
20ml sage-infused sugar syrup*

* Simmer 6 sage leaves in 500ml sugar syrup for five minutes, strain and chill.

Method: Muddle pear in base of Boston glass, add other ingredients. Shake with ice. Fine strain into glass.

What can I get you, petal?

I was originally intending to stick purely to the subject of herbs in this feature, until The Herb Society’s Jan Greenland urged me to read The Scented Kitchen by former Times food writer Frances Bissell. Part recipe book, part cultural study, it offers an inspiring insight into the ways in which flowers have been used in kitchens throughout the world and through the ages.

While most of the recipes are for food rather than drink, the book includes a wealth of useful ideas for flower-based cocktail ingredients ranging from lavender jelly, white peach and elderflower jam, rose petal sugar and borage and nasturtium oil to pansy syrup, flower vodkas, orange flower liqueur, crystallised flowers and dried flower confetti for garnishes.

Carnation Wine Cordial
Makes a 75cl bottle

1 x 750ml bottle red wine

2 handfuls clove pink or carnation flowers

200-250g granulated sugar

3 cloves

Seeds of 2 cardamom pods

A generous curl of thinly-pared orange zest

4 tablespoons brandy

Sops-in-wine were carnation petals floated on the celebratory wine served to a betrothed couple in 16th-century England, and was also the name of a variety of small clove pink. This is an up-to-date version, which produces something resembling a vermouth. Enjoy it as a long drink with a slice of orange and sparkling mineral water. (A full-bodied Sicilian wine makes a perfect base for this cordial.)

Method: Put all the ingredients except for the brandy in a saucepan, bring to the boil, simmer for five minutes, remove from the heat and leave overnight. Strain the liquid, stir in the brandy, then bottle, seal and label.

The Scented Kitchen: Cooking with Flowers by Frances Bissell (Published by Serif). £9.99 from all good bookshops.

Editorial feature from Imbibe Magazine - July / August 2009