Cucumber Elderflower Collins

The Cucumber Elderflower Collins emerged as a format shortly after St-Germain's 2007 launch, as bartenders worldwide explored the liqueur's pairings. St-Germain's 'accidental' pairing with cucumber (both share a delicate, fresh-green character) was quickly formalised into the Collins format.

The Cucumber Elderflower Collins is the garden party cocktail of the 2010s — gin, fresh lemon juice, St-Germain Elderflower Liqueur, cucumber, and soda water in a tall glass that produces a drink of extraordinary freshness, delicacy, and aromatic elegance. St-Germain (launched 2007 by Robert Cooper) created an entirely new cocktail flavour category when it launched — an elderflower liqueur made from hand-picked blossoms whose floral, honeysuckle, pear, and grapefruit character had no predecessor in the cocktail world. The Cucumber Elderflower Collins paired it with gin's botanical family and cucumber's cooling, aqueous freshness to create a template that has been replicated globally.

• The Cucumber Elderflower Collins's English garden party identity connects to the British tradition of summer Pimm's cups with fresh garden vegetables, the Scandinavian tradition of elderflower cordials as summer beverages (hylderblomst saft in Danish, fläderblomssaft in Swedish), and the Japanese tradition of cooling, light summer drinks that celebrate seasonal ingredients.

FOOD PAIRING: The Cucumber Elderflower Collins's delicate botanical freshness pairs with light, spring-summer, and garden preparations. Provenance 1000 pairings: goat cheese and cucumber finger sandwiches, pea and mint bruschetta, grilled asparagus with hollandaise, fresh pea soup with mint and crème fraîche, and elderflower panna cotta.