In psychotherapy, “the learning edge” refers to the boundary between what is and isn’t known. The idea is that, when you dip your toe into unfamiliar territory, transformation happens: you grow.
My psychotherapist mother-in-law told me this in the kitchen several Sundays ago after I had spilled the woes of my day. Naturally, I made us drinks. It wasn’t until later that I realised the drink itself had pushed me to my own learning edge – and perhaps yours, too.
You see, lots about this drink is familiar: gin, clementine, white wine. What was left of the latter from the night before waved at me from the fridge door. As I reached for it, I glimpsed a little bottle of chinotto syrup on the shelf – a bittersweet reduction made from the myrtle-leaved orange – a small sour Italian citrus fruit. It had been given to me some months before and I’d not yet opened it. On a whim, I shook up a teaspoon of the syrup with the other ingredients and, to my delight, it bound them together with a treacly tang, taking me just beyond the boundary of what I’d known before. Delicious – and my kind of growth.
The recipe
You need cold white wine from the fridge and gin, preferably, from the freezer.Makes 1.
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clementine 1
dry gin 30ml
dry white wine 45ml
chinotto syrup 1 tsp
ice cube 1
Using a peeler, cut a twist of clementine skin from the fruit and set aside. Halve the clementine and squeeze its juice into a cocktail shaker, then add the gin, white wine, syrup and an ice cube. Stir for 30 seconds and then strain into a small wine or Nick and Nora glass, garnishing with the clementine twist.
Photograph by Manuel Vazquez