St David’s Day drinks: Welsh whisky, mead and gin for 1 March

St David, Dewi Sant, is the patron saint of Wales, and 1 March is the traditional date of his death in 589. The day is not a bank holiday. Schools hold eisteddfodau, children wear traditional dress, people pin on a daffodil or a leek, and cawl and Welsh cakes are the food of the day. He is remembered for the words “Gwnewch y pethau bychain”: do the little things.

Units are worked out at typical strengths: 46% ABV for Penderyn Madeira Finish, the figure Wikipedia, a secondary source, gives, 40% for other whiskies and for gin, 12% for sparkling wine and the usual strength of each liqueur and mead. Check your own bottles.

Wales has no official national drink. Mead has a written record going back to the sixth century, and Welsh whisky is the drink most people now reach for on the day.

Penderyn was founded in 2000 and released its first single malt on St David’s Day 2004. Its copper Faraday still, designed by Dr David Faraday, a relative of the scientist Michael Faraday, collects spirit at high strength and gives a light, fruity new make.

Madeira Finish is the signature bottle, with honey and dried fruit from Madeira wine casks, and it is the whisky the Welsh Gold is written for. Legend is the gentler way into the same house style, and Celt brings peat smoke.

Penderyn is no longer alone. Aber Falls, at Abergwyngregyn, calls itself the first whisky distillery in North Wales for more than a century. Ask what your local shop stocks.

The Welsh Gold is an Old Fashioned for the day. Stir 50ml Penderyn Madeira Finish, 10ml Welsh honey syrup and two dashes of Angostura with ice for 30 seconds, strain over one large cube in a rocks glass, and express orange peel over it before dropping it in. Make the syrup two parts Welsh honey to one of warm water. Hold it at 10ml: the Madeira casks already bring half the sweetness.

The Snowdonia Sour is a whisky sour with elderflower: 50ml Penderyn, 25ml fresh lemon juice, 15ml elderflower liqueur, 10ml simple syrup and 15ml egg white. Dry shake without ice, shake hard with ice, strain into a chilled coupe and rest a lemon wheel on top. The egg white is optional. Leave it out rather than make a lazy foam.

The Dragon’s Breath is the long one. Build 50ml Penderyn and 10ml honey syrup over ice in a highball glass, top with 100ml ginger beer, squeeze a lime wedge over it, drop it in and stir once. Use a brewed ginger beer with real bite; ginger ale leaves the glass thin.

On a cold first of March, the Hot Toddy takes Welsh whisky in place of Scotch. Stir 15ml honey syrup, 15ml fresh lemon juice and 120ml water just off the boil in a warmed glass, then add 60ml whisky last, with a clove-studded lemon wheel and a cinnamon stick.

Mead, wine made from honey, runs through Welsh history. Wikipedia’s article on mead, a secondary source, cites a Song of Mead attributed to the bard Taliesin, who lived around 550, and derives the English word metheglin, a spiced mead, from meddyglyn, “healing liquor”.

The Mead Royale puts it in a flute: 30ml dry Welsh mead and 15ml elderflower liqueur in a champagne flute, topped slowly with 90ml sparkling wine, with a lemon twist expressed over it and dropped in. Chill everything, the mead included. Use a dry mead; a sweet one turns the drink cloying by the second sip.

Raise it with “iechyd da”, Welsh for good health, said roughly “yeh-chid dah”.

Wales now has gin distilleries across the country. Brecon gin comes from Penderyn, Aber Falls makes gin beside its whisky, and Pollination Gin from the Dyfi Distillery is built on botanicals foraged in the Dyfi Biosphere Reserve.

A Welsh gin and tonic follows the usual build: a copa glass filled to the top with ice, 50ml gin, and 100ml tonic poured slowly down the inside of the glass, stirred once. Match the garnish to the gin’s lead botanical.

The Daffodil is named for the flower: 50ml Welsh gin, 20ml limoncello, 20ml fresh lemon juice and 10ml simple syrup, shaken hard and short and strained into a coupe from the freezer, with a lemon twist expressed over it. If the limoncello is sweet, trim the syrup.

The Bee’s Knees takes Welsh honey. Shake 52.5ml gin, 22.5ml lemon juice, 22.5ml fresh orange juice and two teaspoons of honey syrup hard with ice for 10 to 12 seconds, and double strain into a chilled coupe. Make the syrup two parts Welsh honey to one of warm water.

Cawl, the lamb and leek broth often called the national dish, wants something plain beside it: a Welsh ale or a measure of Penderyn. Welsh rarebit stands up to the Snowdonia Sour. Bara brith and Welsh cakes suit the honey drinks, the Welsh Gold or a Mead Royale. Salty, crumbly Caerphilly goes with a gin and tonic.

Start with a gin and tonic or a Mead Royale for the toast, move to whisky with the food, and keep hot toddies going if the evening turns cold. One 700ml bottle of Penderyn gives fourteen Welsh Golds at 50ml, or twenty-eight 25ml measures.

For the alcohol-free glass, the Sparkling Elderflower Lemonade is 25ml elderflower cordial and 25ml fresh lemon juice topped with 150ml sparkling water over ice. Mix the cordial and lemon ahead and add the water to each glass.

Welsh regiments keep the day too. The leek itself comes, by Wikipedia’s account, a secondary source, from the story of Welsh soldiers wearing leeks in battle to tell friend from foe.

St Patrick’s Day follows on 17 March, and St Patrick’s Day drinks turns to Irish whiskey. The seasonal cocktails calendar has the rest of the year.