DO IT YOURSELF

 Healthy cucumber-gin-cocktail

My mother saves all the Jamie magazines (you know, Oliver). Give me a stack and you won’t hear from me for hours. Somewhere in a number from last year was a cocktail recipe with gin and cucumber. An excellent little tipple to get us into the swing of the summer that is now finally upon us. Such a delicious, healthy cocktail can really help to break up the week. I’ve pimped the recipe a little, sorry Jamie.

This is what you need for 4 people

Gin, good gin. I chose the Hendrick’s because I think this works best with cucumber.

1 cucumber

Rosewater

Ice cubes (of course I crush these myself)

Sugar

Salt

Pinch of basil

4 nice but not too big glasses

Peel the cucumber and cut into pieces. Put it in a cup where you can easily reach it with a hand blender. Mix things to a pulp.

Put in a little dash of rosewater and mix it again. Put the cup aside in the fridge.

Take two small plates. On one pour a splash of rose water and on the other plate a mixture of salt and sugar. Push the rim of the glass in the rose water and then in the salt sugar mixture. Now you have a nice rim.

Now you need your crushed ice. I wrapped a mountain of ice cubes in a heavy tea towel and then looked for a wall where I could bash the ice cubes against, really hard. The ice cubes become crushed ice. It is a bit of work, but it does the job.

Put a lot of crushed ice in a cocktail shaker, along with half of the cucumber mix and pretend you’re a bartender. Shake shake shake.

Then you divide the whole mixture between two glasses and garnish with a basil leaf.
Do the same with the other half of the cucumber mix.

A cocktail: a good idea at any time of the day.