Gin Sorbet

     It's rare you have the excuse to throw a really all-out dinner party, so when it comes up it's important to do it right. I came across a recipe for gin sorbet on another wonderful blog, Domestic Sluttery, which used a mythical being named 'squeezable glucose', but this works perfectly well without, and was probably the most stand-out course with my twenty-year-old taste-testers...

175g sugar, plus extra to serve
350ml water
100ml gin
lime rind in strips
shot glasses to serve (about fourteen)

(picture stolen, quite unprofessionally, from bridalsnob.tumblr.com. Mine were gone long before I considered snapping a picture)

Quite simply, boil your water and throw in the sugar and lime rind, turn down the heat and simmer while stirring until this thickens up a little. Take off the heat and remove the lime rind (careful now) and allow this to cool a little before adding the precious precious gin. Leave this to cool completely before pouring into a tub and sticking this in the freezer. Take the gin out every hour and stir- this breaks up ice crystals and gives you that nice texture. It should take about four or five hours to freeze completely, so in the mean time you can fix anything else you need to do, and even prepare your shot glasses. Let them have at least an hour in the freezer themselves, and garnish the edges with your leftover sugar (I managed to find some edible glitter too!). To serve, I kept the lime rinds and put one in the top of each shot glass with one or two teaspoons of the sorbet. This also helps to fill out the glasses more if taste-testing from the tub has been a bit excessive.