Sometimes it pays to give the people what they want.
“This drink was built entirely with the customer in mind,” says the drink’s creator, Ryan Hawthorne. “I wasn’t trying to reinvent the wheel or make something overly clever. I just wanted to create something ridiculously crushable.”
“I started with two words that always get people’s attention: coconut and lychee. The challenge was turning those crowd-pleasing flavours into something I could genuinely be proud of as a bartender.”
“I’d recently tried a sake with these incredible funky, fruity notes and wanted to build a cocktail that amplified those flavours without drowning out what made the sake so interesting in the first place.”
“I think I’ve managed to strike that balance. It’s approachable, delicious and easy to drink, but there’s a bit more going on for anyone who wants to look for it.”
Lychee Crush
Ingredients:
- 40ml IPPIN Junmai Daiginjo sake (or another tropical, fruit-forward, slightly sweet sake that isn’t floral)
- 20ml vodka
- 75ml coco lychee lime
For the coco lychee lime:
- 2 tins Coco Lopez
- 1 tin coconut cream
- 1 Milklab Coconut Milk
- 1 tin lychees
- 500ml lime juice
Method:
- For the coco lychee lime, sit the Coco Lopez and coconut cream tins in hot water until the contents melt.
- Blend the lychees until smooth.
- Add all the coco lychee lime ingredients together and blend.
- Strain to remove solids, then bottle, label and date.
- Whip the sake, vodka and coco lychee lime with pebble ice.
- Dump into a glass and top with fresh pebble ice.
- Garnish with grated lime zest.
Recipe by Ryan Hawthorne at Coal and Cedar, Newcastle.
