Recipe: Whiskey cocktails to get you in the autumn mood

Elevate your cosy evenings at home with these cocktail recipes from five star hotels.

Do you love ordering a cocktail on a night out but never think of making one for yourself? Are you intimidated by the amount of ingredients, shaking, stirring, Tom Cruise-style showmanship and general faff that you think is involved in making the exotic drinks?

We’re here to demystify what happens behind the bars in some of Ireland’s top hotels with these delicious recipes for whiskey cocktails that are sure to have you sipping merrily under a blanket this autumn.

Pro tip: Presentation is everything – add a fancy garnish and you’ll elevate your beverage from meh to magnificent in an instant!

1. The Croke Park Hotel’s ‘Dark & Stormier’

Ingredients:

• 10ml Jameson Irish Whiskey
• 5ml Fernet Branca
• 50ml Guinness
• 10ml lime
• 10ml simple syrup*
• 100ml Fever Tree Ginger Ale

Method:

1. Layer ingredients together over ice
2. Top with ginger ale and float the Guinness on top

*Simple syrup – 100g of caster sugar & 100g warm water stirred together until all the sugar has dissolved

2. Adare Manor’s ‘Old Fashioned‘

Ingredients:

• 50ml Adare Manor Midleton Very Rare Barry Crocket Legacy release (or any Midleton whiskey can be used) 
• 10ml rhubarb liqueur
• 10ml olive water
• 6 dashes of Peychaud Bitters infused with thyme (float on top)
• Ice
• Optional garnish: Thyme 

Method:

1. Chill the mixing glass and glassware first and throw the ice, refill the mixing glass with ice 
2. Place all the ingredients except for the peychaud bitters, stir for 10 seconds, throw the ice from the glass, place the ice cube in the glass, place the liquid inside the glass and throw six dashes of the bitters on top
3. Garnish

3. The Twelve’s ‘Galway Saint & Sinner’

Ingredients:

• 5ml Micil Single Pot Still Irish Whiskey
• 5ml Antica Formula
• 5ml Chambord
• 5ml Pineapple juice
• Splash Peychaud Bitters

Method: 

1. Place a few ice cubes in a coupe glass to pre-chill and set the glass aside
2. Place all the ingredients into a cocktail shaker, and shake six times to give a nice foam head.
3. Double strain into a chilled stemmed glass
4. Add some splashes of bitters and garnish with a pineapple leaf and/or a raspberry

4. Knockranny House Hotel’s ‘Mama’s Cup’

Ingredients:

• 35ml Kilbeggan Whiskey
• 22ml Grand Marnier
• 30ml of Blood orange juice
• 20ml Lemon juice
• 20ml Honey syrup
• 3 dashes of Regan’s Orange Bitters

Method:

1. Chill your glass by placing a few ice cubes and then set it aside
2. Using a reverse shaker, fill one side with ice and pour in all the ingredients
3. Shake hard making sure the ice touches both the top and the bottom of your shaker, then fine strain back into the cocktail shaker
4. Dry shake again before pouring your Mama’s Cup into your chilled cocktail glass
5. Finally, garnish with a split vanilla pod or a sprinkle of cinnamon to serve

We adore the sound of these two slightly more complicated, fruit-inspired cocktails by Slane Distillery’s lead mixologist Barry Farrell:

5. Orchard Forage

Ingredients

• 50mls Slane Irish Whiskey Extra Sherry Wood
• 25mls Apple Liqueur
• 10mls Cinnamon syrup
• ½ Fresh lime squeezed
• 100mls Cockagee Pressed Apple Juice
• 3 drops of Foamee
• Crushed ice
• Dehydrated apple slice and cinnamon to garnish

Method

1. You’ll need a cocktail shaker, hawthorn strainer, juice squeezer, jigger and bar mixing spoon and muddler
2. Add ice to the cocktail shaker until it’s half full  
3. Add Slane Irish Whiskey, the Foamee drops and the rest of the ingredients as listed
4. Shake for 20 seconds and strain into an ice filled glass
5. Garnish with a dehydrated apple piece and dust with cinnamon

6. Slane Rose

Ingredients

• 50mls Slane Irish Whiskey
• 25mls Chambord
• 15mls Honey Syrup (2:1)
• 15mls Fresh Lemon Juice
• 150mls Pineapple Juice
• 1 dash Barnbrack Off the Cuffe Bitters
• 2 blackberries
• Ice cubes
• Dehydrated lemon wheel to garnish

Method

1. You’ll need a cocktail shaker, fine mesh strainer, jigger and bar mixing spoon and muddler
2. Add Slane Irish Whiskey and the fresh blackberries to the cocktail shaker and muddle
3. Once the flavour has been released from the fruit, add the rest of the ingredients as listed
4. Dry shake together for 10 seconds with no ice before adding ice cubes to half fill the cocktail shaker
5. Shake for another 20 seconds and double strain into a large martini glass. Garnish with dehydrated lemon slice on top

Always drink responsibly.