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 merchandise manager bragged about the volume of Easter buns consumed each year – it used to be they sold over 1.8 million individual Hot Cross Buns in the first week of sale but thousands 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 on New Years Eve.
I used to work as a cocktail girl in what is called the ‘hospitality industry’. Many of my comrades dreaded the horrors lying in wait for us over the course of New Year’s Eve – especially 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 on 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 night of December – is a debacle I can have another go at it late January or 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 hip it’s 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 wantonly across the bun. Then there’s the burger sauce bun and an Australian culinary delight where the bun is flavoured with Vegemite and stuffed with cheese.
For those who like to walk on the culinary edge there’s also 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 Easter 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 additional spiritous liquors. I’ve been admiring boutique gin distilleries advertisements with photographs of their Easter gin specialty peeking cheekily out from a pile of traditional buns dripping with melted butter.
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 – which makes it so much easier to package and transport.
The concept of flat chocolate Easter eggs makes me nostalgic for childhood Easters where big, hollow chocolate Easter eggs were wrapped in shiny coloured foils. They came topped with decorative fluffy chickens on spindly red plastic legs or were presented in lovely chocolate boxes, surrounded by small individual chocolates.