This World Cocktail Day (May 13th), Too Good To Go, the world’s largest marketplace for surplus food, has partnered with mixologist Mix Mann to create four sustainable cocktail recipes using leftover ingredients.
The recipes aim to encourage the nation to use up their leftovers at home, following research that Brits are throwing away a staggering amount of food – with 19.4 million food items per day going to waste. That’s a whopping 135.8 million items a week. This is often due to having a mish-mash of leftovers we don’t know what to do with.
The Four Recipes Include:
- Coffee Podgroni – A delicious coffee themed negroni (alcoholic)
- Can you peel it? – A banana flavoured Mai Tai (alcoholic)
- Espresso Almontini – An almond croissant themed martini (alcohol free)
- Sustainable Sour – A strawberry sour drink (alcohol free with option to make alcoholic)
Coffee Podgroni
A great way to use leftover coffee grounds, or leftover pods from a machine – this could be the first podfusion that I’ve seen! The coffee works well with the bitter notes to create a delicious coffee themed Negroni.
Infusion Ingredients:
- 1 coffee pod / 10g of coffee grounds
- 150ml Campari
Infusion Recipe:
A Coffee pod infused Campari to reuse grounds from a pod or loose coffee grounds
- For an overnight infusion add 1 used coffee pod / 10g of coffee grounds to a jar, pour in 150ml of Campari on top, screw the jar lid on then shake
- Leave at room temperature overnight
- Finely strain the infusion using a sieve or better still, strain through coffee paper to remove any bits
Drink Ingredients:
- 30ml Coffee infused Campari
- 30ml Gin
- 30ml Red Vermouth
- Garnish: Dehydrated Orange (good way to use up old fruits). To do this slice oranges in thin 2-3 mm rounds, place on parchment paper on a baking tray, and place in an oven on low heat around 50C, and leave for 8-10 hours (overnight)
Drink Recipe:
- Add all to a tumbler glass filled with ice.
- If you like your Negroni strong, then one quick stir is enough. Or for more dilution stir vigorously for 20 seconds.
- Then add garnish – if you dunk your orange slice into the drink, the orange will start to infuse too.
Can You Peel It?
We’re using up old banana skins for this recipe – don’t slip up and throw them away!
The older a banana, the riper, the sweeter and richer in flavour. This drink creates a banana syrup better known as an Oleo. We’re creating a Mai Tai inspired cocktail, but you can use Oleo or banana syrup in many ways, such as in an old fashioned or whisky/amaretto sour.
Oleo Ingredients:
- 50g banana peel
- 50g sugar
Oleo Recipe:
Based on one banana skin (which makes around 50ml), multiply up the recipe for more oleo / syrup.
- Chop up the banana peel into small pieces (5-10mm)
- Add equal weights of banana peel and sugar (e.g. 50g peel + 50g sugar) to a sealable jar
- Stir them well to start off the infusion process
- Leave for six hours in a warm room, stirring occasionally
- The sugar should dissolve and you’ll see rich dark syrup forming. Blend all of the ingredients to combine and complete the banana oleo / syrup
- Keep in jar and store in fridge till ready to use
Drink Ingredients:
- 30ml BananaOleo
- 60ml Good quality rum
- 20ml Dry white Vermouth
- 20ml Fresh Pineapple Juice
- 5ml Honey
- 20ml Lime Juice
- Top with 50ml Ginger beer
- Optional: A splash of passion fruit liqueur if you have it
- Garnish with a pineapple wedge and leftover pineapple leaves
Drink Recipe (Uses a highball glass):
- Add all of the ingredients (except ginger beer) to a shaker filled with ice
- Shake for 20 seconds, then strain into an ice-filled highball glass
- Top slowly with ginger beer, and stir 5-10 times
- Add garnishes and enjoy
Espresso Almontini (Mocktail)
Anyone up for drinking a croissant? Yes you heard me, you can use those stale forgotten croissants, and better still you can do it with Almond Croissants to create a super delicious orgeat (almond and sugar) syrup.
Orgeat Ingredients:
- 1 Almond croissant
- ·300ml boiling water
- 220g sugar
Orgeat Recipe
Based on one Almond croissant, it makes nearly 500ml
- Toast the almond croissant in the oven/air fryer first, for richer flavours
- Allow to cool a little, break it up into small pieces and place into a saucepan
- Add 300ml boiling water, and stir
- Then add around 220g sugar, and stir to combine
- Bring back to gentle boil, allow to simmer for 6-7 minutes, stirring often
- Remove from heat and leave for at least 30 minutes to infuse, the longer the better here!
- Strain liquid through a sieve and store in a jar (keep in fridge till ready to use)
- Keep your leftover croissant curd aside to be used to spread on toast, waffles, or a topping on ice cream
Drink Ingredients:
- 35ml previously-prepared Almond croissant syrup
- 130ml cappuccino – fresh is best, but recently leftover works too
- 30ml coconut milk (alternatives include almond milk, or add cream or vanilla ice cream for more indulgence!)
- If you still have left over croissants then add as a garnish. Make sure your glass can take the weight – you can dunk and drink at the same time!
Drink Recipe:
- Add your orgeat syrup, cappuccino and coconut milk to a shaker half filled with ice, and shake hard for 20-25 seconds – as an optional extra you could also add a teaspoon of your leftover croissant curd from the pan here too
- Double strain into a martini glass
- This is a mocktail recipe, but for an alcohol option you can add rum, vodka or tequila to the mix!
Sustainable Sour (Mocktail)
Shrubs are all the rage at the moment and a great way to use up old fruits is to extract the flavour in a different way. One such way is by creating a tart interesting flavour for drinks, this is particularly great for alcohol free cocktails. I made this with some white wine vinegar that hadn’t seen the light of the cupboard door for a while, but the recipe can be amended to adjust for sour to sweet preferences. You can also use cider vinegar, and if such a thing as left over week old wine exists, you can try that for milder, alcoholic shrub.
Sour Shrub Ingredients:
- 2 cups of strawberries
- 275ml water
- 275g sugar
- 1 vanilla pod (or 10 drops of vanilla extract)
- 5cm stick of cassia or cinnamon
- Black pepper
- White wine vinegar
Sour Shrub Recipe:
- Add 2 cups of sliced strawberries into a saucepan with the green leafy tops too
- Add around 275ml water and stir in 275g sugar, bring to gentle boil for 5 minutes, stirring often
- Reduce heat and gently simmer for 15 minutes
- Whilst it simmers you can add a spent vanilla pod using the leftover element, and add a 5cm stick of cassia or cinnamon, plus a small grind of black pepper
- Remove from heat, leave to infuse for 30 minutes minimum
- Then strain well using a sieve – make sure to squeeze what you can out from the strawberries
- Measure how much liquid is left then add half as much white wine vinegar (I had 120ml so added 60ml vinegar)
- Store in the fridge
Drink Ingredients:
- 30ml Strawberry shrub
- 45ml Pineapple Juice
- 15ml Lime Juice
- 15ml Leftover prosecco syrup (equal parts prosecco to sugar, can do it with sparking grape juice too). Alternative a simple honey syrup (2 parts honey: 1 part warm water)
- Aquafaba to create a foam (instead of egg white) – this is the leftover liquid from a can of chickpeas – simply strain the chickpeas, retain the liquid and shake it.
- Garnish: Strawberry
Drink Recipe:
- Add all your ingredients to a shaker filled with ice, shake well for 20 seconds, and double strain into a pre-chilled coupe style glass
- If you find this a bit too tart or sour, then add a little more pineapple juice and prosecco syrup
