Working as bar manager during the mid 1980’s at Fred’s Club in Soho, London, Dick Bradsell created the Bramble in an effort to make a truly British drink. Even though you can’t grow lemons in the UK and he wasn’t able to find a good enough British blackberry liqueur. The blackberries did however take Mr Bradsell back to his berry picking on the Isle of Wight as a kid, getting pricked by the brambles, and you can’t get any more British than gin.

Fred’s Club on Carlisle Street was created to be the ultimate members club for a younger crowd with members like Siouxsie and the Banshees, Aztec Camera, Naomi Campbell, Neneh Cherry and Boy George. But the music connection doesn’t end there. Fred’s Clubshared a kitchen with a seafood restaurant owned by one of the founders of the Ministry of Sound. The reason Dick Bradsell used crushed ice for the Bramble was that he borrowed the ice machine the restaurant used for keeping their seafood on display.

Dick Bradsell started off by making a classic sour but serving up the drink as a martini style cocktail. This made it far too sweet so instead he tried shaking the gin, lemon and sugar syrup, straining it into a glass filled with fresh crushed ice in the shape of a vulcano. Finally drizzling the crème de mûre around it.

The glass was designed in 2019 for IKEA by Swedish designers Pia Amsell and Barbro Berlin and is called Omtänksam.

The Bramble
2 parts Gin
1 1/2 parts lemon juice
1/2 part sugar syrup
1 part Crème de mûre

Shake all ingredients but crème de mûre with ice. Strain into glass and fill up with crushed, shaping the ice into a volcano. Pour the crème de mûre round the edges of the glass. Garnish with a lemon wheel and a blackberry. Think of blackberry-picking on a warm summers day and enjoy.