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Bamboo

Photo of a batch of Bamboo cocktail with glass wavy wallpaper. Vermouth and sherry cocktail.
Photo by Sarah Hogan

Mix up this sherry and vermouth cocktail as an individual drink on the rocks, or stirred over ice and strained if you can be bothered. Alternatively, mix up a batch in advance.

  

Recipes for the Bamboo cocktail vary wildly: the sherry is sometimes fino, sometimes amontillado or occasionally a costly palo cortado, while both sweet and dry vermouths appear, sometimes both together. Here I take my lead from Felix Cohen at his wonderful bar Every Cloud in London, whose taste I trust implicitly. Felix favors Martini Extra Dry or Lillet Blanc as the vermouth, while Harvey's amontillado is his sherry of choice.

Ingredients

1 part dry vermouth
1 part amontillado sherry
Orange bitters

Preparation

  1. Step 1

    For individual drinks, stir vermouth, sherry, and a dash or two of orange bitters together with ice, then strain into a coupe glass. Alternately, build in a rocks glass with ice and stir until chilled.

    Step 2

    Alternatively, to mix a batch of Bamboo cocktails, combine half a bottle (375 ml) each of vermouth and sherry and a teaspoon or thereabouts of orange bitters in a bottle or resealable jar. Add 1 teaspoon orange bitters. Keep in the fridge to be served when and however you fancy it.

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Reprinted with permission from Aperitif: A Spirited Guide to the Drinks, History and Culture of the Aperitif, copyright © 2018 by Kate Hawkings. Published by Quadrille Publishing. Buy the full book from Amazon or Bookshop.

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