Walnut flip

For December the star from behind the bar at Thyme is our ‘Walnut Flip’, made with Nocino, a homemade green walnut liqueur. It is dark in colour, made from unripe, green walnuts steeped in alcohol; a bitter-sweet flavour, tasting herbal at first with a nutty finish. Widely available online and from speicialist drinks stores, but if you can't source it, replace the liqueur with port and a squeeze of lemon. We have combined this traditional Italian digestif with white rum, walnut syrup, egg and a little grate of nutmeg … it’s the perfect festive treat.

Ingredients:

For the walnut syrup:
500ml water
500g sugar
200g walnut halves

For the cocktail:
25ml Nocino
25ml white rum
20 ml walnut syrup
1 egg
Nutmeg & walnut halves to garnish

Method:

For the walnut syrup:

1. Add to the sugar, water and walnuts to a pan and simmer until you can smell the aroma of walnuts.

2. Cool before blitzing in a food processor.

3. Sieve and then pass through a muslin to remove any remaining fine pieces of walnut.

4. Refridgerate.

For the cocktail:

1. Break the whole egg into a cocktail shaker, make sure you don't have any shell in the mix.

2. Add all the remaining ingredients.

3. Reverse dry shake ... that is to shake once with ice, remove the ice and shake again to whip the egg.

4. Double strain, to ensure your cocktail is smooth.

5. Grate over with nutmeg and add a walnut half to garnish.