Drink of the Week: The Patiala Peg – How to Make It

Tale suggests that back in 1920, Bhupinder Singh, was determined that his cricket team would win over a visiting English team. To secure an advantage, he hosted a grand party on the eve of the match, at which he served his guests the famous Patiala pegs. These are notoriously large four-finger whisky servings, traditionally measured from pinky to forefinger. As expected, the English players overindulged, resulting in them being extremely hungover and, consequently, defeated the day after. In this way, the myth of the Patiala peg came to be.

This inspired kind-of old fashioned is inspired by that original drink. Here, we offer it from a custom-made large-format bottle, but we've adapted the recipe to make it better suited for a home environment.

Patiala Peg

Yields 1 litre, to serve 10-12 portions.

Ingredients

• 725g blended scotch whisky
• 130g sugar syrup
• 6g Angostura bitters (approximately 1⅓ tsp)
• 1g orange-flavoured bitters (approximately ⅕ tsp)
• A small pinch of salt
• 2g xanthan gum

Preparation

Combine everything in a sizeable jug. Add 130g water, stir to combine, then put it in the fridge. It will now keep for as long as three weeks.

When ready to drink, dispense about 90ml of the infused whisky into a rocks glass filled with ice (ideally one big block). Drink immediately. If you're feeling traditional, you could measure it in by hand as they did.