If you are hosting a stay-home-stay-safe New Year's Eve, get behind the counter armed with the best DIY kits, ready-to-pour mixes and home-made brews. Teetotallers are also invited.
Bar
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Ginger wine
Borivli-based Lynn Tate is making a batch of the non-alcoholic ginger wine, an Anglo Indian favourite with the warmth of ginger and cardamom. She says it's a good digestive, soothes nausea, sore throat and cold.
Best served chilled, it goes well with cheesecake. If you'd like to add a kick, drizzle in some whiskey or brandy. "It is made through a simple but regular process of stirring and straining over a two-week period. Using ginger root, the spicy wine is ready in two weeks," says Tate.
Order: 9930540939
Cost: Rs 700 for 1 litre, Rs 350 for 500 ml
Peru distilled cocktail
Ready, steady, drink
A MUST-add to your bar is the Perry Road Peru, a Mumbai-style distilled cocktail. This guest bottle is a collaboration between Lower Parel resto bar The Bombay Canteen and gin brand Strangers and Sons, and contains peru from Bandra's Perry Road and gin. The fruits were handpicked and ferried over to the Third Eye Distillery in Goa, we are told. Peeled at their peak, they are slowly macerated into the gin, making this a potent but palatable mix. To add the Bambaiya touch, it comes with a generous pinch of chilli-salt mix (reminiscent of the masala peru hand cartwallahs smear on slices) and can be served on ice, chilled straight up or as a highball, topped with soda. This one is our top pick.
Order https://www.hungerinc.in/perry-road-peru
Cost: Rs 2,999
Kit picking
For classic cocktails/mocktails
Pub chain Social makes sure you get your signature cocktails at home. They say, 'You get the booze, we get the mixers'. From the fiery Bloody Mary to the refreshing Dope martini, the mixers require ice and a shake to make the perfect mocktail. Drizzle in some daru, and you have a cocktail.
Order: Swiggy, Zomato,
social.dotpe.in
Cost: Rs 150 per mixer
Effingut 2 Go
This walk-in store for beer will sort you out for NYE with three sizes of growlers from 500 ml pet bottles to one litre glass bottles. Go for the classic Hefenweizen and Dunkelweizen, or our favourite saizon and dark stout, a stein Robust porter. The one litre plastic growler can be exchanged for a new one on your next visit.
Order: effingut.in/Order
Spike your tea
The Botanicals Cocktail Kit by Tea Trunk comes with a shaker, peg measurer, bar snack, and three lovely herbs/flowers (Apple spice black tea, blue pea and hibiscus). The recipe card inside gives you detailed instructions on how to brew and blend the flavours. Enjoy them as mocktails or add one of the alcohol options listed.
Order: teatrunk.in
Cost: Rs 999
Warm red
Colaba restaurant The Table is offering a mulled wine made with orange, star anise, cinnamon, clove and rosemary with a dash of brandy. Sommelier and beverage head at the restaurant Pratik Angre, says, "We pick a fruit forward wine and warm it up to 55 to 60 degrees; we don't want it fuming, just hot enough to open out the flavours. A sangria, is preferably steeped over night because it is cold and needs time to absorb the flavours, a mulled wine can be ready in an hour or two." If you are trying it at home, here's a tip: If the oranges are not flavourful enough, add Cointreau.
Order: 9326003854 (pre-Order one day prior)
Cost: Rs 3,000
Flavoured ice cubes
They come packed with herbs and mixers. All you do is add soda, paani and alcohol. And if you are a teetotaller, with this and soda, you have a fancy drink to nurse all evening. When it comes to making cocktails, there is the tedious process of prepping fruits and vegetables, chopping, mixing and muddling. With the flavoured ice cubes, you skip all this. Their latest flavour is called Berry Christmas and we found that it gets along with gin and vodka.
Order: iceburst.in
Cost: Rs 199 for eight cubes
Crafters
A must-try on their menu is the apple cider. Other favourites include Hefeweizen, Belgian wit, Pilsner, Dark lager and Marzen. If you want a recommendation, Cucumber lager it is.
At: Shop No. 16, New Link Palace C.H.S., P Tandon Marg, Highland Park, Andheri(w)
Cost: 1 litre growler at R600 and 2.5 litre for Rs 1400 (excluding taxes)
Cordially invited
Asian restaurant and bar Yauatcha is offering cocktail kits and cordials. Tingly guava is packed with zesty ginger and recommended with vodka. Lalu, a home-made cordial with lemongrass, aromatic oolong tea, and lychee juice goes well with vodka.
Cost: Rs 300 each
Order: 9820192068
All rice for beer
The city saw one of its first growlers by owners of Foo and KOKO who collaborated with Great State Aleworks to launch their first rice beer. A crisp and light ale, they say it complements Chinese and Japanese cuisines. The Foo Brew is available in a one-litre growler at 4.5 per cent alcohol content that makes it a sessionable beer.
Cost: Rs 750
Order: 9920133488
The Gateway Brewery Company
Mumbai's first craft beer takes it a notch higher with party kegs of a ginger-infused The Christmas Special Bombay Porter this Party season. Pour out a round of roasty, caramel and toffee notes. Maker promise heaven with plum cake, traditional Christmas roasts and meats. The kegs, which also offer the regulars including white zen, doppelganger, mosaic IPA, zini lager, monk's potion, hold five litres and pour around 15 glasses of beer
Order: @gatewaybrewery;
INSTAGRAM and www.gatewaybrewery.com
Cost: Rs 2,825 onwards
Drifters Breweries
Their team is rooting for their Special Christmas Beer, a Raspberry Vanilla Milkshake Sour Ale. The temperature has dropped and the nip in the air is reason enough to gather close friends and family and toast to the New Year. Made with vanilla and lactose this milkshake-y drink is fruity, and creamy.
Order: www.driftersbrew.com
Cost: Rs 625
Natural mixers
Free of added preservatives, Swa Artisanal Syrups are made with whole fruits, herbs and spices. Choose from 60 flavours of ready-to-mix blends like jamun kalakhatta, lemon ginger naariyal pani, summer berries, passion fruit tea, tamarind shikanji. We can already taste the whiskey with jamun and gin with ginger nariyal paani. Owned and run by Bangalore-based Vaishali Mehta, the syrups are handcrafted in small batches by women trained under a skill upliftment programme.
Order: Amazon; drinkswa.com
Cost: Rs 300 for 250 ml
Mulling over wine
Say prost!
Every year, at this time of the year, consultant chef Aditi Keni makes a batch of Gluehwein, to keep warm and spread some year-end cheer. Traditionally consumed in Germany and Austria after skiing sessions, it's perfect to sip on given that we have all manoeuvred some challenging tracks.
Cost: Rs 1,200 for 750 ml
Order: 9820444561
On the growl
Brew Whale
If you are in a festive mood, go for the endangered searies (American IPA) which has a smooth bitterness with hints of grapefruit and passionfruit or go for their bestsellers Moby Wit (Belgian Witbier) and Harbour the Lager (American Dark Lager). Available in one-litre growlers.
Order: 8928543276
Tricks of the trade from the expert
Bar tips from veteran mixologist Shatbi Basu, who is out with her latest book, The Can't Go Wrong Book of Mocktails
>> Make your favourite drinks in a big jug. Just multiply the quantities, pour over a large block of ice. Add garnish in. If it uses any aerated drinks, pour them in just before service.
>> Freeze assorted juices in ice trays and store cubes in bags.
>> Stock plenty of clear, clean aged ice in the freezer. This cold, hard ice doesn't melt easily.
>> When cutting lime, lemon or orange peel for twists, remove the bitter, white inner membrane of the rind. Use a potato peeler to get just the zest or use a very sharp knife.
>> Where a twist of orange, lime or lemon peel is used, squeeze the peel to release its aromatic oils before adding into the drink.
>> While muddling lime or orange wedges, be gentle. Bruise only the skin to release oils.
>> Aromatic bitters are used only to enhance flavours in a drink, so use them last. Alternately, a tiny splash of Campari works too, so does a sparked stick of cinnamon, star anise, fresh herbs gently bruised.
>> Treat mocktails like you would a cocktail as they need the same flavour, nuance and balance of a cocktail. Use elegant glassware and finish them with fresh fruit and herbs.
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