Oh, hello!

Leap Year

• 60ml gin
• 15ml sweet vermouth
• 15ml grand marnier
• 7.5ml lemon juice

 

Pour the ingredients into an ice-filled cocktail shaker, then STIR! Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist if you’re not lazy like I was tonight.

 

 

The Leap Year comes from Harry Craddock’s Savoy Cocktail Book. The main man came up with it for 1928’s 29th of February, so this year was the Leap Year cocktail’s 21st birthday.

Since Ginuary I’ve been taking it pretty easy, but it’s a leap year and there’s a gin-based cocktail called Leap Year and the 29th of February rolled around and there was nothing I could do. I had to drink a Leap Year on leap day. I wish I was a leapling.

Twitter brings along precious treats every so often, and thanks to Ginuary I started following the tweets from a grand collection of gin brands. One of the most enthusiastic and entertaining of these tweeps is the guy behind @209GinUK (also tweeting on @Distillery209). Thanks to twitter, I was an advocate of No. 209 before I’d even sampled it. Then, thanks to Martin, I actually got the opportunity to sample it, and the bragging rights of having the first bottle of No. 209 in Australia (la la la not listening to debate if there is any). The only sad part was that the bottle arrived, I kid you not, on the 1st of February – one day after Ginuary’s conclusion for the year. I’ve had it sitting quietly on the shelf since then, sealed. Waiting for the right moment.

Well, No. 209 – the right moment was tonight.

It felt so strange to be shaking (oops) up a cocktail after a month of home bar abstinence – so strange, and yet so like coming home.

I also finally cracked open the mini bottle of Gran Marnier that I bought back when I did my Ginuary gingredients purchase. Hahahaha, I just checked my gingredients spreadsheet to try to work out why I originally bought it, and what cocktail did I have it listed against? The Leap Year.

Here’s where I made a wrong turn and demonstrated that I haven’t retained all the lessons I thought I learnt during Ginuary. One of the many things I learned the hard way was ALWAYS READ THE RECIPE THE WHOLE WAY THROUGH BEFORE BEGINNING. Instead tonight I just threw everything into a shaker and then shook it, because, you know… shaker. Right? Wrong.

I mean, some recipes for the Leap Year say shake. Sure, they do. And I don’t have my own copy of the Savoy Cocktail Book (YET), but I’m pretty confident (back me up?) that Harry Craddock’s recipe says to stir. And if Harry Craddock’s recipe says jump, I want to ask how high, but I won’t, but I’ll still definitely jump. I failed you tonight, Harry Craddock.

 Please view the surface bubble swirls as a mark of my failure.

Okay, I’m being very dramatic about this, but I’m mostly using it as an excuse to make a second drink, this time stirring it correctly.

No. 209, you dollface! I’m looking forward to dancing with you some more. Next time, perhaps in a signature 209 G&T? We’ll see about that.

Meanwhile, the Leap Year… classic and tart with a mouthful of orange. Don’t skimp out, triple sec will not do for this guy – not that I even have any triple sec in my home bar, gosh. Leap Year! You are tasty and momentous! See you in four years’ time. Good grief.