It is 9:33 and darkness has all but settled on the garden. A pale moth drifts through silvery foliage The smell of damp earth and crushed herbs mingle with the gentle sweetness of jasmine, and the fireflies, who just moments earlier were stitching golden threads through the twilight, have completed their evening performance. The stillness feels layered, as if the garden is not quiet but listening.
It is the perfect time to sip on an Away with the Fairies cocktail —a charmingly wayward mix of gin, elderflower, cucumber and a touch of lime, shaken with aquafaba for a cloud-soft froth. Elegant, ethereal and just mischievous enough to tempt you from the garden path to wander through shadowy ferns as moonlight pools on the luminous white flowers of the moon vine and the soft drifts of sweet alyssum.
As the cocktail casts a hazy glow, the boundaries between the ordinary and the enchanted begin to blur. And then — the almost imperceptible demure flutter of gossamer wings, glimpsed only for a moment, followed by the delicate tinkling of tiny chatter. There. Then not. A fleeting shimmer of laughter and lilting notes which dance briefly on the air before dissolving into the night. So delicate that you cannot be entirely certain you heard them at all. But then, for a wondrous whisper of a moment, the air is filled with tiny golden sparkles pirouetting on the evening breeze, and briefly the world seems just beguiling enough to believe that fairies might exist after all.
Away With The Fairies
- gin, 2oz
- elderflower liqueur, 1oz
- cucumber juice, 1oz
- lime juice, 1oz
- aquafaba, 1oz
- Put all ingredients in a cocktail shaker and shake well for several seconds.
- Add ice and shake for several more seconds.
- Put a long cucumber shaving into a glass, pour in the cocktail and garnish with a delicate flower. Or fairy dust. That works too.