A refreshing blast of warmth

"Make me something yummy with apricot brandy," was monshu's request. So I dipped into my cocktail bible and came up with this:

Arctic Summer

1½ parts gin [Bombay Sapphire]
¾ part apricot brandy [Rothmann & Winter]
¼ part grenadine
4 parts bitter lemon [Schweppes]

Fill a highball glass with cracked ice. Add the ingredients one-by-one without stirring.

Bitter lemon used to be a special treat for me, one I could basically obtain only on certain non-budget airline flights. But then it unexpectedly appeared at the local market in bottles bearing Cyrillic script and the GWO stocked up big. Unfortunately, the bottles are rather oddly shaped, so we can't really keep on chilling in the fridge.

monshu found this a very refreshing drink--at first. But the grenadine tends to settle, so the last few fingers ended up too sweet for his taste. I suppose stirring it or adding the grenadine after the soda would solve that, but then you'd lose the lovely pink sunset effect. I found a cousin of this called the Red Cloud which replaces the lemon soda with ½ part lemon juice and a dash of bitters and is served shaken and strained. We may have to resort to that when the bitter lemon finally runs out.