Now that we are just past halfway through the year and summer is in full swing, it’s the perfect time to make sure our gin drinking is on-trend.
We love to keep up to date with all things gin here at Craft Gin Club, and our fabulous members do too. To make sure that nobody gets left behind we have put together this amazing list of the 10 top gin trends for summer 2020!
Highball Cocktails
Tall, elegant and devastatingly delicious, highball cocktails are some of the most sophisticated ways to enjoy the summer.
The highball glass, in which the cocktail is served, finds the perfect balance between the reserve of a rocks glass and the flamboyance of a hurricane glass. Making it an incredibly cool drink to be seen with this summer.
A highball can contain any number of cocktail mixes that will get you and your friends salivating. Two of our favourites are our Marmajito, which is a marmalade-infused gin mojito, and our English Garden cocktail, which is a fresh, floral delight from our incredible recipe book, Gin O’clock: A Year of Ginspiration.
2. Bubbles, Spritzes & Sodas
It’s all about the fizz this summer! From champagne and prosecco to sweet sodas, we love a bit of bubbly - so much so we even made our June 2020 Cocktail of the Month, Craft Gin Club’s Knickerbocker Glory, an extra effervescent delight using Soda Folk Cherry. With vanilla and cherry notes, it’s a cocktail that’s full of dreamy nostalgia for ice cream sundaes.
We also think sparkling mixers work amazingly well with citrus flavours. That playful popping texture and zesty lemon flavour work so well in our Lemon Mojito. And for a sweeter tipple that combines lemon and bubbles, you have to try our Lemon Drizzle Sling cocktail - the addition of pineapple juice really makes the recipe sing!
Not to forget the delectable combo of sparkling wine and elderflower, of course, they are the ultimate spring and summer treat. That’s why we love this beautiful Spring Spritz!
3. Bitters
Like everything else, cocktails have ingredients that come in and out of fashion like the changing of the seasons. Bitters are one of those ingredients.
A key ingredient that turned the original pink gin pink, bitters have played a huge part in the history of cocktails and gin drinking. They faded out of the limelight in recent years but now, after being advocated for tirelessly by the world’s top mixologists (including our very own Maria), they are making a staggering and oh-so-delicious comeback.
We couldn’t be happier! Whether it’s Angostura, one of the classic Italian bitters brands (like Campari or Aperol) or one of the newer flavoured bitters (we love rhubarb bitters), their unique, savoury spiced notes are the perfect way to add an extra va-va-voom to your cocktails.
One sip of this Grapefruit Gin Spritz and you will know exactly what we mean!
4. Flavoured Mixers & Unusual Tonics
With such a remarkable range of gins out there it’s no wonder that the number of delectably flavoured mixers and tonics are growing too. This summer is all about celebrating the incredible variety that those mixers and tonics offer!
From the scrumptious and unique light citrus tones of Tonica Superfine Tassoni to the vibrant and spicy notes of Turner Hardy & Co. Spiced Tomato Mix, now is the time to start exploring and discovering some new favourite partners for your gin. Our online shop has everything you need!
5. Low-Alcohol Drinks
As good on their own as they are with gin, low-ABV (alcohol by volume) mixers and cocktails are taking the world by storm! We’re seeing more and more fabulous lower-alcohol options, like this Mediterranean G&T, which mixes the herby, refreshing delights of Pedrino Vermouth & Tonic Spritz (just 5.5% ABV) with our favourite tipple, and these beautiful Martini Fiero based cocktails - we can’t get enough!
6. Minimalist Cocktails With Just Two Or Three Ingredients
Less is more! That’s right, this summer is all about keeping it simple. By using only two or three ingredients in your cocktails you can make sure that each one is getting the respect it deserves, allowing each one to really shine as you sip away your chic summer evenings in the garden.
With these fabulous easy-to-make 3 ingredient cocktail recipes, we have you covered!
7. Local & Sustainable Ingredients
Whether you are growing and foraging your own garnishes or simply buying gins made with locally sourced botanicals, keeping it local and as sustainable as possible will always be on-trend.
If you are green-fingered then we have some great tips for growing your own garnishes and some great ideas for what you might be able to forage near you (just click the links)!
And when it comes to gin, there are lots of distillers who pride themselves on their use of local ingredients, from Glendalough Wild Botanical Gin, made with wild botanicals foraged from the surrounding Wicklow Mountains, in Ireland, to Cambridge Dry Gin, which is made from botanical found in the serine gardens and countryside around the distiller’s home in Cambridgeshire. Keeping it local has never been as cool!
8. Tea-based Cocktails
Can tea ever go out of fashion? We don’t think so! We love a good cuppa here at Craft Gin Club HQ.
Tea in cocktails, though? Now that tasty trend is having a wonderful moment in the sunshine and we couldn’t be happier to jump on board! Black, green, white and red, from Darjeeling to Oolong, loose leafed to bagged, tea represents such a wide variety of flavours and aromas that make it a fantastic cocktail ingredient! Two of our favourite tea and gin cocktail recipes are this grapefruit and green tea scented Mangajo Collins and this yummy Earl Grey Martini!
9. Retro Cocktails From The ‘70s And ‘80s
Whether it’s down to our rose-tinted nostalgia for the (supposedly) happier times of yesteryear, or part of a wider pendulum swing of the fashion for all our favourite things dating back to the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s, but retro cocktails are back in a big way!
2019 was all about the retro gin liqueurs, but in 2020 this trend has gone one step further - or should that be backwards? Either way, from the resurgence of the Pornstar Martini to the Tequila Sunrise and it’s ginny counterpart the Gin Sunrise, you can expect to see a lot more Sex on the Beach this summer (and the accompanying joke, natch).
And gin cocktails certainly aren’t exempt from this trend. From our Gin-A-Colada to this gin-based Long Island Iced Tea, each one is full of nostalgic delight!
10. Blue & Purple Cocktails
There is something about the colours of purple and blue in a cocktail that really make you stop and stare with almost childish glee. Perhaps they remind us of exotic shores and lagoons from past holidays or perhaps they transport us back to times spent eating our favourite neon-coloured sweeties growing up, maybe it’s both. Either way, they are always fun and fabulous and that seems to be what summer 2020 needs. And so the trend is in full flow!
Hop on the bandwagon and try this ode to Prince, Purple Rain. Next, go for this Angelo Azzurro (Blue Angle) from Italy it’s a heavenly blue must-try cocktail this summer. And, of course, you will want to give all of these amazing blueberry based cocktails a try - Phillip Schofield loves them!
So there we have it, the top 10 trends of summer 2020. All that’s left to do is stock up your gin supplies and enjoy the summer!
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