5 Summer Cocktails With A Desi Twist: From Gin Shikanji To Vodka Kokum Cooler

These summer cocktails pull inspiration from the Indian beverage street culture. Traditional summer drinks like shikanji, spicy jaljeera, fruity kokum sharbat, and tangy aam panna are distinctly flavourful. When creating cocktails using these cool summer drinks as inspiration, the overall taste of the beverage remains the same, but the drink incorporates new layered flavour notes, aromas, fruity characteristics, and texture.

For this summer season, here are five summer cocktails inspired by popular Indian ingredients and drinks:

Gin Shikanji Cocktail

The classic shikanji recipe includes lemon juice, sugar, black salt, roasted cumin powder and chilled water. In some regions, people also add chaat masala or fresh mint. The cocktail version uses the same basic ingredients as the original, but replaces some of the water with gin. The botanicals (juniper berries, coriander, citrus) in the gin complement the lemon and spice flavours found in the standard shikanji. Roasted cumin adds an earthy flavour to the drink, while black salt adds a savoury quality that gives the cocktail a different feel from a simple gin and lemonade. 

Vodka Kokum Cooler Cocktail

Kokum sharbat is typically made by taking the fruit's rinds and soaking them in sugar overnight to create a concentrated syrup. This syrup is strained and then mixed with water to create a sweet syrupy drink. Other variations of kokum sharbat include black salt, cumin, or fresh lime juice. When you make a vodka kokum cooler, you mix vodka, kokum syrup, lime juice, and soda water. Since vodka does not have a prominent flavour of its own, but rather a blank canvas, you will taste mostly tartness if not for other ingredients. The lime complements the natural acidity of kokum, and the soda provides a lighter texture, ensuring the sweet-sour ratio will remain constant.

Whisky Aam Panna Cocktail

A cool summer drink, aam panna is created with roasted or boiled raw mangoes mixed with sugar, roasted cumin, black salt and mint. The final drink has a tart taste combined with savoury spices for balance. When combined with whisky and citrus for a summer cocktail, aam panna provides extra structure to the drink. The sharp acidity of the raw mango provides an interesting contrast to the oak and malt characteristics from the whisky; the cumin and black salt serve as a bridge between the mango and the whisky. The addition of mint aromatically lifts the cocktail to maintain some of the same character as the original summer beverage.

Tequila Jaljeera Cocktail

Jaljeera is a staple summer drink made from roasted cumin, mint, tamarind, lemon juice, black salt and various spices, typically served as a spiced summer cooler. Jaljeera has a tangy, savoury, herbal and earthy quality to it. Tequila is combined with jaljeera concentrate and fresh citrus to create a summer cocktail. The vegetal and peppery characteristics of the tequila align well with those of the cumin and tamarind, creating a seamless combination. Mint in the cocktail adds an aromatic touch, while the jaljeera spice combination gives the drink a unique complexity and flavour notes.

Rum Nannari Lemonade Cocktail

This sweet and herbal summer drink is created through a mixture of nannari syrup (syrup made from the root of sarsaparilla native to India) paired with either lime juice or fresh squeezed lime juice, mixed with chilled water. The earthiness of nannari, as well as the root aspect of nannari, gives it its unique characteristics and flavour profile. When nannari is mixed in with dark or aged rum (both of which have noticeable notes of caramel and molasses), the rum reinforces the complexity and earthiness of the nannari, while the fresh lime juice adds brightness and balance to the summer cocktail. 

Summer Cocktails: Why These Combinations Work

The following are the top reasons why these blends work for summer cocktails:

• Indian beverages have traditional flavour structures that are already layered. Many combine fruit, herbs, spices and salt in one drink.

• The addition of spirits can do these ingredients justice, not upstage them.

• Regional flavours provide alternatives to the standard citrus-based cocktail formats popular in summer.

Conclusion

India's traditional beverage culture provides an excellent foundation for developing new cocktails. The flavours derived from cool summer drinks such as shikanji, kokum sharbat, and aam panna easily translate into contemporary summer cocktails.

*Drink Responsibly. This communication is for audiences above the age of 25.