Recipe: Heft's gooseberry gimlet

This cocktail from Heft really showcases the flavour of gooseberries, simply shaken over ice with English gin.

Ingredients

• 50ml gin
• 50ml gooseberry syrup

Method

The gooseberries replace the lemon juice you would normally find in a gimlet and also give it a slightly more savoury finish.

The syrup is fairly simple to make. Use however many grams of gooseberries you’ve managed to harvest or have to hand, wash and sieve, but don’t allow them to soak.

Add the gooseberries to a pan with a little water and cover with a lid. Simmer until the aroma of the berries starts to fill the kitchen, and then add sugar – add roughly a quarter of the weight of the gooseberries you started with.

Crush the berries to combine with the sugar and continue to simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring frequently to prevent the sugar from burning. Pass the syrup through a sieve, cool and bottle. You can even use the waste sediment and roughage from the gooseberries to make a compote.

To make the cocktail, simply shake the two ingredients together over ice and double strain into a chilled glass.