Set aside whatever conventional wisdom would have you believe and consider this: it’s the smallest things often pack the biggest punch.

It’s true where both style and substance are concerned that bigger is not necessarily always better; that a greater result can be achieved with fewer interventions, fewer ingredients, and less weight where expectations (and actual heft) are concerned.

Take, for example, the Coffee Tonic cocktail. It has the air of a classic with none of the baggage, even though it has been bubbling up in the collective conscious for the past few years, in much the same way that the Nespresso Essenza Mini has. The Essenza Mini is Nespresso’s smallest (and a serious contender for the most stylish) machine to date, the latest innovation in a series that conveniently brings café quality coffee home to roast, coupled with unparalleled modernity of design. In this, as in so many other recipes, it’s the secret ingredient that transforms otherwise ordinary ingredients into extraordinary moments worth savouring.

Recreated here by James Irvine, the cocktail programme manager for Sydney’s Swillhouse Group, the Coffee Tonic is a shot of Nespresso Ristretto Grand Cru coffee mixed with chilled tonic water and flavoured with aromatic gin. The subtle, fruity notes provided by the intense Nespresso Ristretto blend find their perfect match in the Fever Tree tonic water’s quinine flavours, as well in the gin and orange garnish.

The result is impossibly fresh, with an incredible complexity resulting from the use of a few key ingredients: it’s bitter and sweet, cut through with bright citrus notes and finished with a refreshing fizz.

Move over, Mimosa: this might just be the perfect brunch cocktail for the next generation.

NESPRESSO COFFEE TONIC
25ML CHILLED NESPRESSO RISTRETTO GRAND CRU
45ml Four Pillars Rare Dry
Fever Tree tonic water
1 small pinch of salt
Orange

Build the cocktail in a chilled glass over ice and top with good quality tonic water, stir well before lengthening further with additional tonic. Garnish with an orange wheel.

jamesirvine_3
Credit: Kimberley Low
Nespresso Essenza Mini, $249. Shop now

CREDITS
Motion: E Michael Wolf
Stills: Kimberley Low
Location: Restaurant Hubert
Special thanks to: James Irvine and the Swillhouse Group