Cocktail of the Month - May

Digbeth Highball

As an incentive to get out the house and go drinking (as if anyone needs an excuse), I'm making it my mission to try a different Irish whiskey based cocktail each month, and if ingredients permit, to try recreating them at home. Or if I'm feeling particularly fancy (or skint), to raid my ingredients cupboard and come up with my own concoctions.

The inaugural cocktail of the month is the Digbeth Highball, which I tried at Zumhof Biergarten. Bit of background before we begin, if you haven't read my "About Me", I live in Birmingham (the England one not the Alabama one). Birmingham has a large Irish population, many of whom came to the UK as part of the industrial revolution in search of work. Digbeth is the "home" of Birmingham's Irish community; up until last year it was home to the Irish Association (who have since realocated to the suburbs because of regeneration) and hosts the annual St Patrick's Day Parade (well, when there's not a global pandemic......). 

Why am I waffling on about Digbeth? Because honestly it took me 10 minutes to figure out why a fancy Jameson, ginger and lime was called the Digbeth Highball. In my defence it was the first time I'd been out in like a year and the excitement went straight to my head.

So, the ingredients, as mentioned earlier this drink is a Jameson, ginger and lime with the addition of a magic ingredient called Barenjager (which is no doubt spelt with some umlauts which I've missed off). When I read it on the menu, the word "jager" made me gag, bringing back awful memories of jagerbombs in the Wetherspoons on Broad Street. Fortunately, the only thing Barenjager has in common with the dreaded Jagermeister is that it's made by the same company. Thank fuck.

Barenjager is a German honey flavoured vodka liqueur and it is bloody tasty! It blended really nicely with the warmth of the Jameson and the spice of the ginger ale. One of those all rounders which would go with go well in several cocktails, or on it's own if the mood took you.

So how do you make this drink. Well it's pretty simple, one measure of Jameson, one of Barenjager, some lime and ginger ale (all over ice of course) My drink came with a dehydrated orange segment which I took out as soon as I'd taken photos for the 'gram, because it didn't really add any thing and I couldn't eat it. I would've changed it to a wedge of lime if it was my creation.

If you're making this as home, you could of course substitute the Jameson for another whiskey, as long as it has warming honey notes to blend with the Barenjager. Something like Teeling Single Grain would probably go nicely.

Let me know in the comments how you'd jazz up a Jameson, ginger and lime?