Cherry Almond Tart

A potent little gin sour

I have a thing about creating cocktails based on my favourite desserts. I love the challenge and creativity. They are such fun to experiment with and also so colourful to photograph.

So far I have created the Gooseberry Pie and the Lemon Meringue Pie. I use fresh ingredients where I can, often growing them in my garden or ‘borrowed’ from the gardens of friends and family.

I am steadily creating a whole gin cocktail menu of alcoholic puddings. Or should that be puddingy cocktails?

Cherry and almond are flavours that harmonize so well together in a tart that I couldn’t resist combining them in a cocktail. And what better cocktail than a gin sour to complement the tartness of the cherry.

Gin sours typically have a ratio of 8 parts gin to 4 parts syrup to 3 parts sour. I’ve tinkered about with the ratios a bit as I prefer a slightly sweeter cocktail. But the syrups here don’t dominate the tartness.

The pretty maraschino cherry purple colour of this Cherry Almond Tart cocktail belies the strength of its alcohol content. It is actually quite a potent little number. Even more so if you swap the almond syrup for Amaretto.

Variation

Try using homemade sloe gin instead of London Dry or your usual cocktail gin. The bitter almond of the sloe gin deepens the nutty almond flavour of the cocktail without dominating the cherry.

If you want to find out how easy it is to make your own homemade sloe gin click here for my step by step guide.

Glass:

Cocktail

Ingredients:

60ml / 2oz gin

22.5ml / .75oz maraschino liqueur

22.5ml / .75oz fresh squeezed lemon juice

15ml / .5oz syrup from the maraschino cherry jar

7.5ml / .25oz almond syrup or Amaretto

Instructions:

Shake all the ingredients over ice.

Double strain the cocktail into the chilled cocktail glass.

Garnish:

Maraschino cherry