Campfire cocktails - hello muddler

hey campers it's alan friedman again here to talk to you about some cocktails uh so for this cocktail summer camp mode uh and it's a nice day out by the lake we've got our sun protection and uh but we need a nice refreshing cocktail to go with it and so today we're gonna make uh what we're calling a hello muddler uh which is just gonna be a very simple gin drink and we're gonna muddle in uh some cucumber and some mint and uh and a little lemon so it's gonna be pretty basic uh but it's something that you can learn how to do yourself and then as you wanna make it uh you can always vary so we're gonna

start off with our uh our vegetables we've got our lemon cucumber and mint so first thing mint goes in the tin we take our muddler now if you want to you don't have a muddler no need to go out and get a fancy one you can just use a nice solid sturdy wooden spoon i like a muddler um makes things a little easier and you really get that lovely smell coming out this is mint just from my garden uh then we're gonna take our cucumber and cut some slices you don't have to use the world's freshest cucumber uh you don't want anything that's obviously got brown spots on it uh but really you can just use anything

i like to use a lot of cucumber it's a fun flavor that people often forget about and so it really adds a nice refreshing element right who doesn't love literally being as cool as a cucumber and so now you really want to get your muddling on this is where having a good mother helps because you're really just smashing it in so you can see uh in here we've got a lot of little pieces we're gonna strain them out don't worry so we've got our mint we've got our cucumber now we need three things sugar acid and of course booze so let's start with our acid uh tastes very about how people like their cocktails uh i like um

i like my cocktails to be not super acidic uh not super sweet either so we're gonna use just a little of each um so in this case for two ounces of gin i'm gonna use a little under a half ounce of lemon juice some people may want the full half ounce if you want a nice traditional sour um i'm using just a hair over uh just a hair over a quarter a quarter ounce which is gonna make it bright and fun and friendly um by the way i love this uh little clear oxo strainer um you know it's always fun to have the fancy jiggers but this one really does help you measure them cleanly

so you've got this now we need the sugar um you could have done this with just a tablespoon of ordinary table sugar muddled in with your lemon juice and your cucumber it'll dissolve pretty quickly but not fast enough so that's where we bring in simple syrup simple syrup is the only pre-advanced cooking you need for this but it won't take you very long i promise equal parts sugar water in a pot bring to boil take off the pot it'll last for a long long time in the fridge and you can put all sorts of aromatics in it you can put mint in it you can put lemon peel in it um i put a little uh

tea in this one uh so it just it smells a little like iced tea it's going to give us that little extra fall or summer flavor because again who doesn't love iced tea with mint uh by the lake so i'm using uh a little more than a quarter ounce here so it's not gonna be very sweet if you want it more refreshing if you like a sweet cocktail add a little more go for a half ounce the joy of making cocktails for you is you get to make them the way you want to and of course last we have our gin um if you've never really explored gin it's a fun drink it's got that nice

little pine juniper flavor but there are lots of gins out there each of them have their own flavor pick one that you like i happen to like no let as a nice balanced middle of the road gin uh that still has some interesting characters but there's absolutely nothing wrong with going for a classic like beefeater or something like that and look at that that's some good luck we have exactly two ounces of gin which is what we want in our cocktail so we have mint cucumber lemon sugar gin now of course we have to add our ice and get ready to uh do a little shake now shaking a cocktail doesn't just make it cold it also takes

the booze down a little bit it dilutes a little bit and that's okay that's what we want to do we want this to be something that is nice and light and refreshing so we put our tins together to make sure that they're actually sealed so i don't spill it all over the computer and now we do the thing that makes everyone feel like they're professional it could maybe change careers and screw infosec let's just go make cocktails and keep people happy if they're living or you know just stay this and make it for all of our friends um i like these tins because they're easier to separate you give them a little squeeze they're a little better than the ones

with pure lids on them now again because we've got a lot of particulate here we're going to be using uh not just the regular strainer but we're going to use an extra strainer as well so i've got my glass and let's do a little angle here and now we're just going to pour our cocktail into our glass uh now the last thing that i'm going to recommend because the vision here is a nice little daydream is i want to make this even lighter and brighter because right now if i take a sip it's delicious but i'm still getting a decent amount of intense flavors i'm getting the gin i'm getting the sugar i'm getting the

acid so i'm going to take just a little bit of soda water and add it to the top if you want to be really fancy go with champagne who doesn't bring champagne to this campfire but really this is going to turn a cocktail into something that's light easy drinking perfect afternoon by the lake talking to your hacker buddies and having a good time so enjoy happy camping