A night in with Bombay Sapphire gin and Wimbledon

I’m a member of the Collective Bias Social Fabric Community. This post about Wimbledon and our night in with Bombay Sapphire gin cocktails has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias and its client.

Gin, set and match with Bombay Sapphire…

Here are the ingredients for our night in: Bombay Sapphire gin and various cocktail mixers, a picnic and the tennis. Also, rain (of course! What else can you expect from summer? And how British am I for discussing it?)

Since having the baby eighteen months ago, Alex and I have so much less time together that we try to really make the most of our evenings. So as soon as she’s asleep we’ll quickly put the living room back to rights, collapse on the sofa and catch-up about everything and nothing; Eliza, work, houses, what a random person said to me in the shop, who he saw on the tube and so on.

We’ll often idly watch something on TV, but I have to admit I find most sports tedious to the core and zone out whenever my husband watches them. Or complain loudly until he turns over. One we both love though, is Wimbledon, and we make a point to always watch the highlights together in the evening.

When I saw Andy Murray was playing that evening, I recorded the match and planned us a night in with the tennis, a picnic and gin. As part of the process, I went shopping that day for Bombay Sapphire, mixers and food for the evening (you can see my Google+ photo album).

So, what was the score? Once we had a sleeping baby, we turned on the tennis – it was raining there too, of course, so the roof was on – and commenced our living room picnic. For food I’d packed British tapas – aka picnic food! – and even got the picnic hamper down for the occasion (when else are we likely to use it this summer?)

To drink, we had two different Bombay Sapphire cocktails made up by our own fair hands, as follows. Continuing the Wimbledon theme, we even had heart-shaped ice cubes (love, as per the tennis scoring…).

Gin cocktail one aka the ‘SW19 strawberry serve’: mix a spoonful of sugar, as much Bombay Sapphire as you want, the juice of a lime, and ice. Add three sliced strawberries, mix and crush. Add soda water and garnish with another strawberry.

Gin cocktail two aka the ‘Lemon Murray MANIA’: mix a generous helping of gin, ice, sparkling lemon (we used the San Pellegrino lemon flavour) and a lime wedge. Mix, drink, repeat.

So we sat on the floor, watched the tennis, chatted and drank a cocktail. Or two. Or three. The lemon one was undoubtedly the best and we’ve had one most nights since. I think the strawberry one wasn’t quite sweet enough, maybe use sugar syrup or strawberry puree if you’re making it.

It can be tough finding time for the two of you, can’t it? Since having the baby we’ve found it’s even more valuable to make the time though, even if it’s just on your usual night in with the baby monitor.

Anyway, Andy Murray won, it was a lovely evening and we got to drink gin, so I think we were all winners here.

So…cheers!