This Tanlines cocktail from James Irvine is a drink we love

This drink is one of the Boothby Top 50 Drinks of the Year 2022 — you can see the full Top 50 here.

If you've had the pleasure of sitting at any bar that has James Irvine behind it, you know you're in for a good time. The banter is there, and the drinks don't get any better.

Irvine is an accomplished bartender — with stints at the much-missed Hinky Dinks, and later, Shady Pines Saloon and The Baxter Inn in his repertoire — and he's currently the creative drirector of gin drinks for Australian brand Four Pillars. That means he also oversees the drinks at Eileen's Bar at the Four Pillars Lab in Sydney's Surry Hills, which is where you'll find this drink, Tanlines.

"Tanlines in it's simplest form is a Gin Pina Colada, that just slaps," says Irvine.

Tanlines

Ingredients

Makes approximately 10L.

• 4,800ml Modern Australian Gin
• 3kg pineapple, skinned and cubed
• 3,000ml water
• 1,200ml citric acid solution (10%)
• 1,200ml coconut milk
• 800g caster sugar
• 60g lime leaves

Instructions

1. Dissolve caster sugar into water.
2. Croyvac gin with pineapple, lime leaves, water and sugar.
3. Sous vide for 2.5 hours at 55ºC.
4. Meanwhile, make the acid solution.
5. Portion coconut milk into large square Cambro.
6. Once the gin comes out, transfer to an ice bath and allow cooling for an hour.
7. Once cooled, funnel out and add to acid solution and combine.
8. Slowly add cocktail into coconut milk, curdling slowly.
9. Leave refrigerated for 2.5 hours
10. Once fully curdled, run batch through a chinois and oil filter, repeating this process through the curds that collect in the filter – until the liquid runs clear.
11. Once completely clarified, bottle and refrigerate.

For the Citric Acid Solution (10%):
Stir 150g of citric acid into 1.5kg of water, dissolve. Bottle and refrigerate.

Recipe by James Irvine, Eileen's Bar, Sydney.