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Wasabi-curious? This refreshing, spicy sip is the best place to start.
About the cocktail
Like most people, I’ll never forget the first time I experienced wasabi. Presented in a cute little ramekin alongside an early-noughties California roll, it looked like avocado – green mush will do that – so I applied it liberally. Then came the rush. In mute nostril agony, my brain raced through emergency diagnostics to identify the source of such sensory wickedness. The burn was unlike anything I’d experienced before. Spicy but not. Aromatic but in a slightly hurty way. “No hits for guac,” I thought. “Must be the mush.” I was hooked. Now, wasabi ain’t everyone’s cup of tea, but for those who seek such thrills, this Cucumber Wasabi Gimlet cocktail recipe is essential reading. There are plenty of ways we can add welcomed spice to our drinks, but if you’re wasabi-curious, there’s no better place to start than right here. But before we get into the specifics, a little green mush refresher is in order. Along with its horseradish and mustard cousins, the wasabi plant is part of the Brassicaceae family. Native to Japan, where it’s commonly served as a condiment for sushi and other dishes, its stems have been cultivated and grated into a thick, herbaceous paste for over a millennium. Wasabi is a notoriously fussy plant, which makes it incredibly expensive to produce, so most of the stuff we get over here is heavily diluted with horseradish, but it’ll still work a treat in this cocktail. Tossed into a shaker with a good gin, some lemon juice, cucumber and a dash of sugar, a quarter-teaspoon of wasabi injects a curiously off-spicy tone to the Cucumber Wasabi Gimlet. Give it a solid shake over ice, strain into a chilled coupe and garnish with a togarashi-dusted cucumber ribbon. Weird but wonderful.
Watch: How to make the Cucumber Wasabi Gimlet
Ingredients
50mL gin
20mL fresh lemon juice 15mL sugar syrup 3 slices cucumber ¼ tsp wasabi, or to taste Glass: coupe or martini Garnish: skewered cucumber ribbon with togarashi seasoning
Method
To prep your garnish, run a vegetable peeler along a cucumber lengthways to create a wide ribbon. Skewer it, sprinkle it with togarashi seasoning and set aside
Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker Add cubed ice and shake until the outside of the tin is frosty Carefully fine-strain into a chilled glass Garnish with your skewered cucumber ribbon
Dan’s top tips
Okay, so you might be wondering what the hell togarashi is. Put simply, it’s a Japanese spice mix, and the good news is that it’s readily available at most supermarkets. House Foods Shichimi Togarashi is the most ubiquitous example – blending red pepper, roasted orange peel, black and yellow sesame seeds, Japanese pepper, seaweed and ginger – but making a DIY version is as easy as combining your preferred spices with nothing but a bowl and a whisk. When it comes to the wasabi in this recipe, our suggested quantity brings a mild kick to the mix, but you might prefer more – taste as you go. Just be sure that it all dissolves in your shaker first because even the biggest wasabi fans won’t want a blob of it in the one mouthful. And while we have you, here's a quick note on ribboning cucumber. The easiest method is to lop the ends off first, then, using a vegetable peeler, slice the cucumber lengthways into perfectly thin ribbons. The centre is too soft for this purpose, so stop when you hit the seeds, flip, and do the other side. Eat the core (why discard it?), and use the ribbons for your cocktail. Easy!
image credits: Shelley Horan (photographer), Raye Scerri (videography), Bridget Wald (stylist), LSS (production).
