The Record-Breaking Commonwealth Cocktail Has A Whopping 71 Ingredients
Yes, you read that headline correctly — 71 ingredients. In one cocktail. But before we get into these ingredients and how such an insane cocktail is possible, let's dig into the why behind it all.
The year is 2014. The XX Commonwealth Games are taking place in Glasgow, Scotland. Think of the Commonwealth Games as a smaller version of the Olympics, where the countries in the Commonwealth of Nations compete in a celebration of sport — one that's been nicknamed the "Friendly Games." The Glasgow Games are about to see 17 sporting events played out over 11 days, competed in by 71 nations.
Enter: mixologist Mal Spence of Glasgow's Kelvingrove Café, who took that number and ran with it. To commemorate the event and celebrate all 71 participants, Spence created an epic cocktail crafted with 71 international ingredients, one ingredient sourced from each nation or territory competing. With this, the Commonwealth Cocktail was born.
How do you make a 71-ingredient cocktail?
According to People Make Glasgow, this is the "greatest number of ingredients ever used in one cocktail" (via Insider). With 71 parts to this impossible punch, we believe it. The sheer amount of ingredients is a feat for any mixologist, but how do you pull off something with so many elements and make it taste well?
The answer is a lot of trial and error. "I went through over 300 different ingredients before finding the perfect blend," Mal Spence told Daily News. After six months of elixir experimentation, the bright pink punch was created. In the end, there was a method to Spence's madness, and it worked.
Once the complex ingredient blend was created, the execution of the cocktail was more straightforward. To make the punch, Spence crafted the chosen 71 ingredients into "Commonwealth Bitters" and added 3-4 drops to 50 milliliters of blended Scotch whiskey, 40 milliliters of Hawthorn Drinks Honey and lavender shrub, and 10 milliliters of Hawthorn Drinks Dandelion & Burdock Syrup. Shake, double strain, and serve.
The many, many flavors of the Commonwealth Cocktail
From fruits, berries, and roots to herbs, spices, and leafy plants, this cocktail has a little bit of everything (from everywhere). So what exactly is this celebratory drink made of, and what kind of flavor notes will surprise you when you take a sip?
Some ingredients make sense in a cocktail recipe: pomegranate from Maldives, prickly pear from Namibia, sugar cane from Guyana, and sweet basil from St. Lucia. Other ingredients you're familiar with might surprise you in the cocktail form: saffron from Pakistan, cashew nut from Sierra Leone, and chives from Kenya. Many are shocking additions to something you'd sip on, like nakati eggplant from Uganda, tonka bean from Trinidad & Tobago, and new potatoes from the Isle of Man.
Then there are the ingredients you've likely never heard of before, which make this drink even more intriguing — ladies finger from Samoa (a small, sweet banana), sapodilla from Turks & Caicos (the fruit of a tropical evergreen tree), and galangal from Malaysia (a root similar to ginger or turmeric). The list goes on and on, but there's only one way to know what this 71-ingredient concoction tastes like.