Adventures in Alcohol | The Summer Barrel cocktail is a punchy little number

There’s a bit of lateral thinking going on at Le Port Parfumé in Sheung Wan. The bistro’s name is French for the fragrant harbour, our own dear Hong Kong. Where many another establishment would run with the idea of fragrance by adding some jasmine tea to their cocktail or a favourite Hong Kong fruit such as lychee, this venue has riffed on the word port. Hence we have the Summer Barrel cocktail (HK$100).

The base of the drink is a white port. Next comes a London gin because London is also a port city. The Italian white vermouth and the French curaçao represent the international trade seen in a port city. The drink is topped up with prosecco, long associated with the port city of Venice. A spritz of absinthe is added at the end for fragrance, but I found this barely noticeable and would happily skip it.

The drink’s creator, Ondrej Pospichal, didn’t go as far as to suggest putting a girl in the drink because there should be one in every port.

Pospichal says that this is basically a punch, so the drink will be made in a small barrel to be served tableside from a trolley.

The garnish is a thin strip of rolled-up cucumber, but you could use an olive if that sounds too fiddly to make at home. As Pospichal says, it would be “quite robotic” to use the same garnish every time for every drink.