Sounds weird but once you hear the story it makes sense. The balcony basil has gotten out of control. What started as a perfectly normal trip to the garden centre is now edging closer to a hostile takeover. There is more basil than any household could reasonably use, even if they do love pesto, and at a certain point we have to get creative. An experimental cocktail seemed like the obvious solution.

We've been on a bit of a Sunday cocktail run lately, last week was a surprisingly good tequila and pressed coconut water with a Tajín rim, you can see how to make that here, so this weeks basil seemed like the perfect excuse to see if we could make something decent again. We also had a flux of mangos, alas we didn't grow them ourselves but they still needed to be used. So, mango, basil it seems like we're onto something already.

Now we went for vodka, mainly because that's the only main spirit that we had available, but honestly any white spirit would probably work. Except gin, gin is best left alone for cocktails.

The Basil Problem - serves 1 but you can fit 2 in the shaker

Ingredients

  • 50ml vodka
  • 15ml triple sec
  • 40ml fresh mango juice
  • Juice of half a lime
  • 15ml spiced sugar syrup
  • 50ml coconut water
  • A generous handful of fresh basil
  • Tajín for the rim

For the spiced sugar syrup we made ours at Christmas and its lasted well into summer, which sounds odd but works perfectly. Bring 360ml water and 95g mulling spices to a simmer for 10 minutes, strain, add 220g demerara sugar and stir until dissolved. Refrigerate for up to three weeks, or if you're like us six months. If mulling spices aren't available, combine cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, star anise, allspice, cardamom pods and dried orange peel.

Method

Run a lime wedge around the rim of your glass and dip it into Tajín. Muddle a generous handful of basil leaves in the base of the cocktail shaker, enough to release the oils but not so much you're making pesto, if you're lazy you can just shake with the rest of the liquid, the ice will help bring the oil out just not as well. Add the vodka, triple sec, mango juice, lime juice, spiced syrup and coconut water. Add ice and shake hard until cold. Double strain into your glass over a large ice cube, if you don't have a double strainer its ok, it just will have some leaves and it won't be a smooth, but that's ok a Mojito feels like drinking a pond so a stray basil leaf isn't a big deal.

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