BLACKCURRANT & BLUEBERRY
Who of us, that has amounted to anything, was not essentially weaned with the help of a blackcurrant cordial? That ruby elixir remains a treasured artefact of all of our youths – gulped hungrily on endless summer days, supped steaming hot from a mug in bed when ‘off school’ in the winter.
How dizzyingly delicious might this childhood fave be then, we dreamt, if we made it with a 64% volume of pure fruit juice?! The intoxicating aroma supplies the answer the second you unscrew the top. We beseech you to try it. It’s a genuine out of nose experience.
With all its fragrant extravagance, blackcurrant, appropriately, is the virtuoso here - elegant, lovely and luscious, but the blueberry adds its own subtle Stradivarian string. ‘It’s like a super-posh Ribena,’ our friends have said, a little too infectiously. It is, we are happy to suppose, but a super-posh Ribena with depth, erudition and suavity - a Ribena with a wet-suit under its dinner-jacket, a Ribena that will wait until it has mastered conversational Russian before reading War & Peace.
GOOSEBERRY & LIME
Heaven only knows why (the tears of the Almighty are palpable) but gooseberries have so long been overlooked. To the modern ear, they sound archaically Edwardian - the fruit from a Saki story - something to be stood in the corner for not eating at Sunday lunch.
But they are truly and incontrovertibly the unsung hero of the English kitchen garden. The edgiest, most characterful fruit within it. We were therefore determined to include a recipe trumpeting these prickly bushes in our range of inaugural cordials. And, by jingo, are we glad we did as the result, we think, is a revelation - particularly to those cloyed for decades by spiritless elderflower.
The first sip is sharp and clean, before mellowing into a soft and languorously fruity finish. Gooseberry dominates, but never overwhelms, while lime adds quiet but crucial support. Light, sprightly and bracingly refreshing, this cordial is all about the art of managing the tart. Glorious.
SICILIAN LEMON & REDCURRANT
Christopher’s, in its every nuance and detail, is deliberately and unashamedly English.
And yet, in the quest for style and piquancy of flavour, this sceptred isle recognises it must go beyond the bounds of its silver sea - in this case to the region of Aci Sant’Antonio on the Ionian-Etnea coast of eastern Sicily where the only lemons worth having have been cultivated for over 400 years - to an unmistakably chic world of horn-rimmed sunglasses, Riva launches, short men’s bathing trunks and imminent extinction by Thompson machine gun.
We are singularly proud of this blend of ours where citrus meets berry in an eternally thirst-quenching embrace. It’s all about balance. Sicilian lemon provides sun-kissed bite, while - in an instance of rare Anglo-Continental détente - British redcurrants add subtle but avowable depth.
One can imagine Inspector Montalbano sharing a glass with his latest inamorata and then pouring a lavish undiluted slug over his ice cream.
