A popular feature of The Dartmouth Food Festival has always been the Salcombe Gin Distillers drinks tent and their talented bar team. This year’s festival was no exception.

On the very tasty looking drinks menu was a drink called ‘Sunset Sail’, which was the winner of the competition held by the Salcombe based drinks company, to find a new cocktail specially for the food festival.

Devised by Chris Marchington, from Weybridge in Surrey, this drink proved so popular with visitors that the bar was literally drunk dry of key ingredients on the Saturday of the festival.

“I was delighted to get the news that my entry had been selected to appear on the festival menu” said Chris. “I grew up in Devon, and spent many a summer in Dartmouth. It made sense to me to make this a tribute drink to Dartmouth and The West Country, which is why I based it on rum and apples.” The judges clearly liked the apple and rum mix, topped up with fizzy wine. They also praised the fact that the drink was fairly straightforward to make, so that a busy bar team could keep a thirsty crowd happy and not waiting too long. Perfect for getting any party started.

Chris’s recipe for A Sunset Sail is as follows :

Shake 40 cl Rum 20 cl Apple Brandy and juice of half a Lime with two table spoons of sugar syrup over ice. Pour the resulting “Devon Daquiri” into a wine glass. Top Up with cava, and decorate with a small spoon of Chambord floated down the side of the glass to create a sunset … add a slice of apple and there you have it. You can sail off into your own personal sunset...