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Favourite hipflask recipes

Nicola Jane Swinney, H&H hunting editor

20 December, 2007

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The hipflask in the hunting field is the equivalent of the St Bernard with a barrel of brandy in the Alps, hopefully minus the drool. Here are some popular choices for the contents.

Hipflask classics

The Percy Special: equal parts of whisky and cherry brandy.

Whisky mac: Scottish whisky and ginger wine.

Port and brandy: half and half.

Bullshot: an intoxicating mixture of beef consommé and port (popular in shooting circles).

Newer entries

Hot buttered rum: Warm a glass of cider in a pan with some cloves, a cinnamon stick and a spoonful of honey or molasses sugar, add a good slug of dark rum and float a pat of unsalted butter on the top.

Hot spiced port: with cloves and hot whisky with sugar.

Mulled wine: a long standing favourite.

Milk and whisky: served cold, sometimes with a raw egg and Tabasco sauce.

Sloe gin: Another long standing favourite.

vodka with raspberries: a great alternative for those who don't like gin.

H&H office favourites

Lucy Higginson, Editor: "Rusty Nails for me, carried in the hipflask I was given when I left The Field magazine, inscribed 'Sloe Long, Lucy'."

Catherine Austen, racing editor: "I was started as a child on cherry brandy — which tastes like good-quality cough medicine — and progressed to sloe gin, where I've stuck. And hot port in Ireland before hunting gives me the courage to jump the really big banks!"

Abigail Butcher, news editor: "Gooseberry gin. A gooseberry is the last thing anyone wants to be. But it's transformed when added to gin and then it becomes highly popular."

Nessie Lambert: "Blackberry vodka. I don't feel the cold after that and the fences look smaller. A Percy Special has the same effect."

Kate Green, H&H Olympic reporter 2008: "Sloe gin, please, or port and brandy combined."

Octavia Pollock (Country Life, actually, but she writes hunt reports for H&H): "Lovage liqueur and brandy, two parts to one, is scrummy. I was given a bottle of it for looking after the hunt horses."

Charlotte White, deputy news editor: "Damson gin is wonderful."

Victoria Gray (deputy editor, Horse, but a former H&Her): "Being Scottish, I should say Glenmorangie — but I loathe and detest whisky. I'd fill my flask with something horribly sweet like Baileys and hope it would weigh me down enough to keep me in the saddle."

Reader's recipes

Caroline Jeffery-Goodall says: "My partner Andy Wright hunts with the Vine and Craven. His latest hipflask invention is hazelnut vodka — you can buy the syrup at any good coffee shop. There were many wrinkled noses when he first offered it, but it slid down a treat and the flask was certainly empty when he got home!"

Home-made Drambue recipe, described as "a lethal concoction" by Bob Bell: "Half a bottle of whisky or brandy, 1 bottle of Strongbow, 1 pound of sugar, 1 medium sized bottle of rosehip syrup (if you have trouble getting hold of this you can use apple and pear concentrated baby juice instead). Mix together until the sugar is dissolved and decant it into suitable receptacles. It added to the great fun we had."

What do you have in your hipflask? Send your suggestions to HHeditor@ipcmedia.com and they will be added to our list

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