Today we are having tapas for dinner and wanted to pair the food with a cocktail. As a base we wanted dry sherry as it’s often enjoyed together with tapas. Doing some research about sherry based cocktail we stumbled upon The Savoy Cocktail Book originally from 1930 by Harry Craddock.
The original recipe says 1/2 Sherry, 1/2 French Vermouth, one dash of maraschino and 2 dashes of orange bitter. Shake well with ice and strain in cocktail glass.
We want it dry as it will pair with tapas but not too dry so we’ll adapt it a little to get some more sweetness.
Coronation Cocktail (No. 1.) – take one
2 oz Fino Sherry
2 oz Dry Vermouth
1/2 oz Maraschino
2 dashes of Orange Bitter
A lemon twist.
As its all clear ingredients we’ll stir it with ice before serving in a chilled cocktail glas.
It ended up tasting better than we could have imagined, balanced with enough sweetness.
So what did we pair the cocktail with? After our visit to Bar Raval we wanted to try more tinned seafood. Squid in olive oil, scallops in tomato sauce, pickled olives and vegetables, seed crackers, tarragon mayonnaise and a fantastic Dutch aged cheese. The scallops ended up as our favorite.