After accidentally having one too many grown up drinks last night and being up early this morning to walk Juniper and pick some more sloes, I have been left feeling a little jaded. In my younger days of galavanting, the remnants of the night before could be seen off quickly and fairly painlessly with three magical ingredients, orange fanta, beef monster munch and a cheese and onion pasty. Unfortunately as my age has increased, so has the length of time it takes me to feel human again after an evening of frivolity. This left me with only two choices. 1. Stop drinking or 2. Find a new remedy. The likelihood of number one actually happening was minimal, therefore number two was the way to go.
After a night spent with friends in Edinburgh a couple of years ago I was offered a Red Snapper with my breakfast, didn’t have a clue what it was but just said yes because I was on my holidays, which makes morning drinking far more acceptable! Intrigued, I watched my friend potter around his kitchen grabbing bits and pieces together in order to assemble our drinks. Ah-ha! Basically a Red Snapper is a Bloody Mary but made with gin rather than vodka. I must say it did just the trick and fast became my go to “hair of the dog” tipple, although, I do also enjoy them when I’m not feeling the after effects of the night before.
I’ve come across various recipes online, but, hands up, I don’t follow any of them. I’m a bit more of a slop it in, taste it and tweak it if necessary. Plus I like a bit of spice so tend to need a touch more Tabasco than most recipes suggest. If you fancy making a Red Snapper these are the kind of things you’re going to need
- gin
- tomato juice (lots of this)
- lemon juice (a bit of this)
- Tabasco hot sauce (as much of this as you can tolerate)
- Worcestershire sauce (a couple of dashes of this)
- celery salt (a sprinkle of this)
- black pepper (a grind of this)
- ice
I personally don’t use celery salt, but have thrown some garlic salt in before. As a veggie I swap standard Worcestershire sauce for Chippa Worcestershire sauce, (which is also vegan and gluten free) and my absolute favourite thing to also use rather than black pepper is either tikka masala spice drops or black pepper spice drops from Holy Lama. These extracts are brilliant because they are in liquid form, which means your drink doesn’t end up with a gritty texture. I also flit between using standard tomato juice and Big Tom spiced tomato mix, (which is also veggie friendly) it just depends how lazy I’m feeling and where I’ve been shopping.
My most recent Red snapper was made using some glorious Tom Cat Six Gin which is distilled in association with Foxdenton Estates. I figured this gin would be perfect for my kind of spicy Red Snapper as scotch bonnet chilli is used as one of the botanicals. It added a great warmth and a lovely kick but the heat wasn’t overbearing at all, in fact, I still added Tabasco to my drink. Sadly there was only enough for one in this little kitten bottle, may have to top up my supply at Catford Gin Festival next weekend!
A I fully appreciate that a Red Snapper will not be for everyone, but if you’re looking for something to dull that aching head and help you feel human again after a heavy one, this works a treat for me. And on that note, I’m headed off to the kitchen to fix myself one…along with a very large glass of water!
Gin Obsessions 