Easter in a Bottle
Easter in a Bottle
Using the simplest of recipes, we have taken Nutmeg, Cinnamon, and locally produced dried Flame Seedless grapes and steeped them in our Original Gin Elixir to create Easter in a bottle. With citrus notes being the strong but subtle foundations of this Gin, they have lifted the spices to a truly recognisable and genuine flavour that will leave you smiling and wanting oh so much more!
Tasting notes from an Australian gin distillery.
Halloween, Christmas and Easter have been slyly involved in a merger by commercial cartels. No wonder small children are confused as to the connection between the three festivities.
Hot cross buns used to be an Easter treat but their charisma is diminishing. Whereas they used to appear modestly in late March they’re now shamelessly flaunting themselves in town in December. Rumour has it they’ve even been glimpsed much earlier even in chic boutique bakeries.
One supermarket conglomerate brags about the volume of Easter buns consumed each year – it used to be a yearly load of a mere 2.5 million buns of all varieties but many more are expected to be devoured in 2023.
The only festival that has kept its dignity is New Year’s Eve. Depending of course how one chooses to spend the evening. Reputations lost at the office Christmas party are rarely redeemed by the guilty parties on New Years Eve.
I used to work in ‘hospitality’ as a cocktail girl. And many of my comrades dreaded the horrors lying in wait for us during the countdown to midnight and its messy aftermath.
But who knows? Soon New Year might be persuaded to show up earlier and merge with Christmas. Frankly, I’ve always been keen on celebrating two New Years.
I’m devoted to the Lunar New Year which is celebrated by numerous cultures in various ways at diverse dates. It’s based on the first new moon of a lunar calendar whose months are moon cycles. So even if my New Year’s Eve – on the last day of December – is a debacle I can have another go at it late January – early February.
Getting back to Hot Cross Buns. Not only are they becoming available all year round but the traditional bun is under threat. Familiarity has bred contempt.
Chocolate hot cross buns are still popular but somewhat passe. To be truly chic it is important to go all out with hybrid hot cross buns. Easter buns are no longer simply a sweet, spicy yeast bun chock full of raisons and mixed fruit peel decorated with a white cross.
Hell no. On offer are bacon buns where the crosses are made with thin rashes of bacon draped across the bun in a wanton fashion. Then there’s the burger sauce bun and an Australian culinary delight where the bun is flavoured with Vegemite and molten cheese.
For those who like to walk on the culinary edge there’s hybrids involving ingredients such as kimchi, corned beef or smoked oysters.
And for those who are devoted to a liquid Easter breakfast you can bypass the bun altogether and drink gin laced with traditional Hot Cross Bun flavours. About four years ago Gin distilleries began making small batches of gin infused with spices such as Anise Myrtle, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger.
You can drink it with a mixer or slosh a generous amount over ice. Cocktail recipes are also offered should you want to firm up the gin and hot cross bun flavours with more spiritous liquors.
I’ve been admiring the boutique gin distilleries advertisements with photographs of the hot cross bun gin bottle peeking cheekily out from a pile of traditional buttered buns.
No doubt sophisticates who aspire to being avant-garde will pair their infused gin with the latest in flat Easter eggs. Apparently the chocolate egg is flattened and makes it so much easier to transport and package.
It makes me nostalgic for childhood Easters where big, hollow chocolate Easter eggs were wrapped in exquisite coloured foils and topped with decorative fluffy chickens on spindly red plastic legs.
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