A panel of six judges describes what unusual flavour should become the Glasgow Martini at the city’s newest cocktail bar The Noble. Flavours are ‘a piece and jam’, ‘pizza crunch’, ‘bacon sandwich’, ‘donner kebab’, and the ‘Barra’s Donut’.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00We're here today at The Noble, which is our new cocktail bar and kind of public house on Bothwell
00:07Street. Driven by classic cocktails, that's the kind of ethos behind the menu, is being able to
00:12have a space in Glasgow where as soon as you think of a margarita, you think of this venue. As soon as
00:16you think of a martini in particular, you think of this venue. We visited The Noble, one of Glasgow's
00:21newest city centre bars, to help them pick out what flavour would be the subject of their Glasgow
00:27Six judges tried out five potential flavours, all themed around Glasgow cuisine and culture.
00:32Scoring them out of five, only the winner would make it onto the menu.
00:35We've got a martini section, where we have six martinis. We've got a dry, we've got a dirty,
00:40but we then got a hot honey, where we've fermented our own hot honey. We also have the passion fruit,
00:46which utilises a passion fruit essence, a coffee martini, not an espresso martini,
00:52and a tomato martini. The passion fruit, tomato and coffee all utilise an essence that we make
00:59in the Rotovap downstairs in our lab. We are using the Rotovap to effectively distil a concentrate,
01:06and then we add that to the martinis with Lille Blanc as the preferred vermouth. We're using
01:11Absolute Vodka as the base vodka, or Beefeater Gin, and then we're adding a little tiny touch
01:17of sugar, and what that does, that sugar then just binds the essence flavours to the alcohol,
01:23and it gives you this really smooth martini that then still has the flavours within it.
01:31So the tomato one is nice and fresh, the passion fruit's really juicy, and the coffee one
01:36tastes like a shot of double espresso. Today, what we've done is we've compiled a shortlist
01:43for the Glasgow martini. What I've looked at here is the different flavours that are evocative
01:51of Glasgow. So we've got a jam piece, we've then got a bacon roll, or bacon roll slash
01:57bacon crisps, like frazzles basically. We've got a deep fried pizza, and we've got a spicy kebab,
02:05and finally we've got the Barra's donuts. So we're trying to play about with science to create
02:12these nice big full flavours while still keeping it as a dry martini, but at the same time we want
02:17to evoke like memories of Glasgow. All five flavours are inspired by Glasgow's culinary
02:22culture and history. Our diet is known for its quirky takes on dishes, its edge on simplicity,
02:28and clutch on greasy foods. And while it turned into an interesting competition, one cocktail
02:33blew it away, receiving five marks across the board. And so the winning cocktail, which will
02:38now be named the Glasgow martini, is the Barra's donut. The judges agreed this flavour was the most
02:44true to what it was trying to emulate, as well as being delicious in taste. You can now try a
02:49Glasgow martini at the Noble on Bothwell Street.