Find the perfect gin cocktails to pair with sweet and sour, sushi and noodle dishes!
Aug 18, 2021
If you love trying incredible recipes from all over the world as much as we do here at Craft Gin Club HQ (we love food almost as much as we love gin!) then you need to check out our friends at Feast Box!
They have an amazing range of dishes from every corner of the globe for you to discover. All you have to do is select whichever dishes take your fancy from their menu and they will then send you a box with everything you need to make each one right to your door. Coupled with a Craft Gin Club Gin of the Month box, there’s everything you need for a gin-credible night of amazing food and cocktails.
But which cocktails do you pair with which dish? That’s the real question!
Inspired by Feast Box’s delicious recipes and our August 2021 Gin of the Month, Brass Lion Singapore Dry Gin, our Master Mixologist, Maria Vieira, has been thinking up some fantastic cocktail recipes to pair with our favourite types of Asian and East Asian cuisine.
Ever wondered which cocktails would work best with a sweet & sour, sushi or noodle dish? Well, wonder no more, with these three mouth-watering cocktail recipes you can take your foodie nights in to the next level.
What’s more, Feast Box is offering Craft Gin Club members 40% off their first two recipe boxes. So, if you’re a member, head to your member area to take advantage of that amazing offer today!
We all know sweet and sour dishes from Chinese takeaway menus across the country, whether your preference is vegetable, seafood, chicken, pork or beef, but did you know that it is actually an age-old Cantonese dish representative of a whole cuisine built around that brilliant juxtaposition of sweet and sour flavours. In Cantonese, Sweet & Sour Pork is know as “gu lou yuk” and Feast Box pay homage to the traditional way of making “gu lou yuk” with an ingredient that may surprise you: ketchup!
Maria has come up with the perfect gin cocktail to pair with Feast Box’s Sweet & Sour Pork. A twist on our The Big Bang Theory, which is a fabulous chilli, lime and gin cocktail, Maria has reduced the amount of syrup needed so that those bright zesty citrus flavours can shine through to contrast the sticky sweet and sour sauce wonderfully. For an extra savoury kick, try rimming the glass with salt and pepper too!
50ml gin
25ml lime juice
15ml simple syrup
4 slice chilli
Lime wedge & chilli slices, to garnish
Add all of the ingredients apart from the garnishes to a shaker with ice and shake well. Double strain into a rocks glass filled with crushed ice and garnish with some extra chilli slices and a lime wedge.
Get your chopsticks at the ready because, from nigiri to California rolls, the popularity of sushi in the UK has grown tremendously over the last few years, and it’s easy to see why. That mix of rice seasoned with rice wine vinegar and served with tender seaweed, fish (often raw), meat or vegetables is at once refreshing and always full of umami - yum!
What do you serve sushi with? The levels of deliciousness are taken to even greater heights when your sushi is served with the traditional accoutrements of hot wasabi and salty, rich soy sauce to had extra layers of flavour to each delectable mouthful, not to mention the pickled ginger that cleanses the palate and titillates the taste buds after each bite.
The combination of prawn with creamy avocado in Feast Box’s Prawn & Avocado Sushi Rolls is simply divine. Wrapped in seaweed sheets and finished with toasted sesame seeds, they make for the perfect dish for a night in with a gin cocktail or two, especially when that cocktail is Maria’s readjusting of our Spice As Nice.
50ml gin
20ml lime juice
10ml simple syrup
75ml ginger beer
fresh coriander leaves
lemongrass stick
Lemongrass stick or coriander sprig, to garnish
Add a couple of coriander sprigs and 3 or 4 slices of fresh lemongrass to a shaker with gin, lime juice and simple syrup. Fill with ice and shake well. Strain into a highball glass with ice and top with ginger beer (you can double strain with a sieve if you don’t like the green bits of the shaken coriander in the drink). Garnish with lime and lemongrass or a coriander sprig and enjoy.
The rich, earthy, umami flavours of shiitake mushrooms are the perfect match for the zinging, spicy kimchi in this lip-smacking udon noodle dish from Feast Box.
If this is the first time that you have come across udon noodles then you are in for a real treat!
Thick and bouncy, udon noodles are doughier than their thinner counterparts, making them the perfect sponge to soak up the flavours of anything you coat them in. What’s more, their length makes them perfect for slurping up like spaghetti.
What is kimchi made of? Kimchi is a traditional Korean staple that involves fermenting and salting vegetables, usually napa cabbage, and seasoning them with a spicy chilli paste made from garlic and gochugaru (Korean chilli pepper). Used as a condiment or a main ingredient, kimchi is spicy and rich and remarkably complex.
Maria’s Pegu Club is the perfect cocktail to match the intensity of such a wonderfully deep and heart-warming noodle dish. Originally invented in Myanmar (once known as Burma), just outside of Rangoon, at the famed Pegu Club (named after Myanmar’s Pegu River), this stunning cocktail mixes gin with Cointreau and two different flavours Angostura Bitters, their original Bitters and Angostura Orange Bitters. It’s a sumptuous cocktail that’s full of citrus and spice and all things nice!
50ml gin
25ml Cointreau
15ml lime juice
1 dash Angostura Bitters
1 dash Angostura Orange Bitters
Twist of lime, to garnish
Add all of ingredients to a shaker with ice and shake well. Strain into a coupette or martini glass and garnish with lime peel. Enjoy!
Don’t forget, Craft Gin Clubbers can get 40% off their first two boxes with Feast Box! If you’re a Craft Gin Clubber and want to take advantage of this amazing offer, head to your member area today and to find out how by following this link!
Ketchup might seem like an unusual addition, but Hong Kong chefs have been using its tangy umami kick for decades; ‘ketchup’ is in fact a Chinese word. The competition between vinegar’s tang and a more fruity sourness is the heart of the dish, with ketchup uniting both flavours.
— Feast Box
This recipe suits the Sweet & Sour Pork dish as it adds an extra kick in between bites. The fresh lime then combines perfectly with the fruity pineapple flavour.
— Maria Vieira, Craft Gin Club's Master Mixologist
I have adjusted our original cocktail recipe to focus on the flavours of the coriander and lemongrass. Refreshing, green and with a gentle spiciness, this is the perfect accompaniment to the prawn and avocado sushi rolls.
— Maria Vieira
Our take on a classic Pegu Club cocktail, which is zesty and citrusy, will cut through the spiciness of the kimchi perfectly.
— Maria Vieira
