las pozas

2 oz Beefeater Gin
1/2 oz Falernum
1/4 oz Orgeat
1 oz Lime Juice
1 dash Angostura Bitters
1 slice Cucumber
1 pinch Mint (~6 leaf)

Muddle the cucumber, add the rest of the ingredients, and shake with ice. Strain into a Collins glass filled with ice interspersed with 3 slices of cucumbers.

After Kirkland Tap & Trotter, I headed down to the Southend to visit Sahil Mehta at Estragon. There, Sahil offered me his recipe book to flip through, and one of his drinks of the day from July with cucumber and gin seemed like the perfect offering. For a name, Sahil and I focused on the garden aspect of the drink; that and the English gin brought up the idea of the Surrealist garden, Las Pozas, that British writer Edward James built in the jungles of Mexico.
The Las Pozas greeted the nose with a cucumber bouquet that led into a lime and vegetal sip. Next, juniper, cucumber, mint, a touch of nuttiness, and clove made for a flavorful swallow.