THE STORY BEHIND THE COCKTAIL NAME

Aotearoa. The land of the long white cloud. A toast to our rich cultural heritage, diverse landscape, and countless native ingredients.

My drink, "Long White Cloud" is a toast to this beautiful country and everything that makes it so. From the seas to the skies, and the earth to our people, each ingredient in my cocktail is inspired by our island nation and is built around my hero spirit, Ardmore Legacy.

Ardmore Legacy is the perfect whisky for my cocktail due to its unique light peaty notes. It is also a tip of the hat to the vast amount of people of Scottish heritage throughout our southern isle.

Secondly to Ardmore Legacy, I've chosen to use the softer Connemara to add some fresh and almost green peated notes to the drink. These two whiskies play off of each other incredibly well while still highlighting Ardmore's signature flavour profile.

Supporting the whisky and giving our cocktail a sour note are lacto-fermented golden grapefruits. A grapefruit variety only grown in New Zealand's north, the lacto-fermentation process preserves this very seasonal fruit while adding a lactic acid tartness and salted notes that pair with the savoury peat of the Ardmore Legacy.

To sweeten our drink, I have opted for a Purple Kumara Orgeat. Long cultivated and consumed by the Maori, the purple kumara is a root vegetable known for its anti-carcinogenic properties as well as its delicious flavour. The earthiness of the kumara plays off of the similar earthy notes in both whiskies while adding a nutty depth to our drink.

Our final ingredient is a Korengo soda. This native seaweed, similar to kelp, is crucial in local cuisine and lends an umami sea-like punch to our drink while adding effervescence. The umami notes in the soda pair very well with both the Ardmore and Connemara while accentuating both the golden grapefruit and the purple potatoes used.

Finally, 'Long White Cloud' is garnished with just that, a long white cloud. I have created a milk cloud flavoured with Kawakawa, an important local botanical to literally cap off my drink. This drink truly is my toast to New Zealand, its diversity, its native flora, its people, and above all, its beauty.