So good I drank half of it before I remembered to take a picture.

La Medicina Latina

This is the twin sister of The Penicillin. If you’ve never heard of it I strongly suggest you read about it first because all of that jibber-jabber also applies to the Latina. Along with the Paper Plane and many others these recipes are to be found in Sasha Petraske’s posthumous, and only, book Regarding Cocktails. I massively recommend this book. You won’t find it full of fancy (or indeed any) photographs and my copy does contain a few misprints (including on the Latina recipe) but it’s a wall to wall collection of superb yet accessible recipes and tips from Sasha and his crew from M&H and its successor bars. It also doesn’t demand a myriad of esoteric ingredients like so many recent “craft” cocktail books. It’s an absolutely essential cocktail book as well as a fitting memorial to Sasha. Anyway, on to the drink.

What La Medicina Latina does is substitute tequila for the blended whisky of the Penicillin, lime juice for lemon and a spoonful of mezcal for the Islay malt float. Despite the alterations the trick remains the same, smoky mezcal on the nose, sweet and tangy tequila, lime, honey and ginger on the tongue. Wowzer. This a stunning upgrade to an already superb drink.

La Medicina Latina

2oz reposado tequila – 100% agave.

0.75oz fresh lime juice

2 teaspoons each of your honey and ginger syrups or to look at it another way 0.75oz in total of honey and ginger syrup.

Shake with ice and strain into a chilled DOF glass containing a big lump of ice.

THEN

float a heaped teaspoon of good quality mezcal on top.

Garnish with a piece of candied ginger (optional).

Toast Georgette Moger-Petraske for making sure her late husband’s recipes were set free in Regarding Cocktails.

ISBN 978 0 7148 7281 0