The next ultimate Halloween cocktail that you can whip up at home is not one for the faint hearted. Daffy’s creator Chris is a big fan of spice and spent some time this summer growing Carolina Reaper, the world’s hottest chilli pepper, in the onsite polytunnel. Sitting at 2 Million Scoville Heat Units (for reference a jalapeno sits between 2,500 to 10,000 SHU) this chilli will not just pack a punch, it will knock you clean out.
Insanely spicy but also surprising sweet and fruity, if you can hack the heat. We thought it would make the perfect heat source in a fiery Red Snapper cocktail.
A Brief History
The Red Snapper is a classic cocktail that dates back to the 1920’s, where a young fellow named Fernand “Pete” Petiot supposedly (there is a lot of ambiguity in the history of cocktails) invented the Bloody Mary in the famous Harry’s New York Bar in Paris. The story states he relocated to America after the prohibition and took his creation with him, however, vodka wasn’t as easily accessible as it was in France so he swapped it out for gin. A small rebrand away from the name Bloody Mary and the Red Snapper was born!
So, just like its vodka filled sibling, you are combining tomato juice, citrus, Worcestershire sauce and a range of flavours and spices to compliment and enrich the drink: celery salt, sea salt, peppercorns, horse radish, sherry, garlic, olive brine, beer, hot sauces, fresh chillies and mustards. The different combinations are endless and bartenders all over the world have been making their mark on this drink for decades. What’s great about a Red Snapper is the botanicals from the gin works so well in enhancing and elevating the flavours in the drink and in our opinion works so much better than vodka.
Carolina Reaper Hot Sauce Recipe
To make The World’s Hottest Red Snapper we have created our own hot sauce that is simple and easy to whip up. For this Recipe:
1 x Carolina Reaper Chilli Pepper (the quantity is completely up to your own heat preference and can be subbed out for any other type of chilli)
4 x cloves of garlic
1 x white onion
3 x tablespoons of apple cider vinegar
½ x teaspoon of salt
½ x teaspoon of paprika
1 x cup of water
We start by peeling our garlic cloves and slicing our chilli and onions.
SAFETY WARNING! use gloves when handling this chili, the oils will stay on your hands even after you have washed them and imagine rubbing your eyes with the world’s hottest chilli pepper, SHUDDER.
Place Chilli, onions and garlic onto a baking tray and roast on a medium heat for 15 minutes, keep an eye out to ensure they don’t burn, smoke from the chilis can irritate your eyes so ensure you open some windows to keep the room well ventilated and be careful when opening the oven.
Take out of oven and place into a food processor with the rest of ingredients and blend. If you like a smoother hot sauce then you can add extra water when blending and strain out the bits at the end. If you like it thick and chunky then blend to recipe and pour straight into a squeezy bottle.
‘The World’s Hottest Red Snapper’ Recipe
Now that we have our hot sauce it’s time to source the rest of our ingredients to create this despicably hot Red Snapper. For this recipe we are using Daffy’s London Dry Gin and a classic mix of Worcestershire sauce, celery salt, black peppercorns, freshly squeezed lemon juice and Cawston Press Pressed Tomato Juice. When making any Bloody Mary variant, the number one rule is to always invest in a good tomato juice. It’s the main ingredient so it makes no sense to settle for a watery lacklustre supermarket version. We have chosen Cawston Press because they pack 15 tomatoes into each bottle, making it super rich, thick and savoury.
Cocktail Ingredients:
50ml x Daffy’s London Dry Gin
1 x pinch of celery salt
2 x grinds of black peppercorn
25ml x fresh lemon juice
2 x dashes of Worcestershire sauce
1 x dash of Carolina Reaper hot sauce
100ml of Crawston Press Pressed Tomato Juice
(all ingredients can be adapted to suit personal preference)
Place all ingredients into a cocktail shaker with ice and roll: Bloody Mary variant rule number two: never shake always roll. “Rolling” is when you take your shaker with ice and instead of violently shaking it back and forth you slowly turn it, flipping it round in a circular motion. When you shake tomato juice it will cause the ice to melt rapidly, thinning out the drink. We want to keep the thick mouthfeel of the tomato juice so rolling it will gently mix and cool the drink whilst maintaining its dense texture.
Take a tall glass, fill with fresh ice and strain the content of the shaker inside. Garnish with: lemon slice, celery stalk and leaves, cherry tomatoes and a Carolina reaper chilli (don’t you dare touch this with your hands, we have come this far without an accident).
The scariest cocktail of them all, mainly because we are too scared to actually drink it. Enjoy!
