December was a month of drink concoctions... Disaronno & Coke, Hot chocolate with manukka honey and chipotle Tabasco, Finnish Sima, some gin for Ruth's Christmas and some homebrew beer flavouring. I'd definitely make Sima again - it was pretty easy and tasted amazing: for an 800ml bottle boil water, dissolve 100g brown sugar, cool bottle to pitching temp, zest and juice a lemon, add 6 raisins and half a pack of bakers yeast - leave it open and out of the fridge for 48 hours then seal it and pop it in the fridge for a day or so... yum.

The gin was for Ruth's Christmas. Ingredients were as follows:

* 20cl of vodka
* 3 black peppercorns
* 6 juniper berries
* tiny shard of licquorous root
* smallest cardomon pod
* small snip of vanilla
* pinch of sugar
* tiny snip of dried pear
* orange peel in the shape of an R

It was too early to taste it before Christmas so hopefully the end results are positive!