Gin Bramble Recipe

fresh blackberries for gin bramble recipe

Recommended gin: Wessex Distillery’s Alfred the Great Premium gin

Prep time: 5 minutes or less

Serving size: Serves 1

Dietary: Gluten-free, Vegan and Vegetarian

A gin bramble, so named for its main ingredient of fresh blackberries, is a modern classic cocktail recipe that’s been popular since its creation in London in 1984. Most bars and restaurants will have a gin bramble or a certain twist of this cocktail on their menu. The bramble’s signature purple aesthetic, fresh ingredients and balanced sweet and sour flavours make it a popular choice and a winning cocktail to make for friends. 

The bramble can be tweaked in various ways to suit your tastes, the season, or the ingredients you can get your hands on, however, the classic recipe using fresh blackberries and the French blackberry liquor, Crème de Mure, is our favourite. 

Follow the simple steps below to construct and serve a signature gin bramble for yourself, a friend or a loved one; there’s no doubt this crowd-pleasing cocktail will go down a treat. 

Ingredients

  • 50ml gin. It’s recommended that you use a high-quality gin as it can make a significant difference to the final taste, our premium Alfred the Great gin is exceptionally smooth and a popular choice for use in cocktails. 
  • 20ml fresh lemon juice
  • 1 tbsp sugar syrup. You can make sugar syrup with a simple 2:1 sugar to water ratio. 
  • Ice cubes
  • Crushed ice
  • 1 tbsp blackberry liquor, such as Crème de Mure. You can also use Sloe Gin as a replacement if you can’t get hold of blackberry liquor or prefer your cocktails with a stronger kick.
  • 1 lemon wheel
  • Fresh blackberries

You will also need:

  • Cocktail shaker
  • Strainer

Method

Step 1

Choose your glass for serving. For a bramble, we recommend something short, like a traditional rock glass or similar. Fill your glass with crushed ice. 

Step 2

Once you’ve measured out your ingredients, add the gin, lemon juice and sugar syrup into a cocktail shaker.

Step 3

Shake all the ingredients together to create your mixture and pour through a strainer into your cocktail glass of choice filled with ice.

Step 4

Drizzle the Crème de Mure over your crushed ice and allow it to seep into the drink, to create the signature bramble purple look.

Step 5

Garnish with a fresh lemon wheel and fresh blackberries for the finishing touches, and enjoy! To make this recipe for more than one person, simply double, triple, or quadruple the amount of each ingredient. 

Recipe tips

  • Make sure to use fresh ingredients when making this recipe, including fresh fruit to get the optimum flavours. 
  • You can adapt the citrus flavour for your tastes. Prefer lime to lemon? Simply swap the juice for fresh lime juice and garnish with a lime wheel. 
  • Try making your brambles with various types of gin to figure out which taste you like best, whether its a classic London dry gin or a flavoured gin like a Sloe or Gooseberry gin for extra sweetness.

Recipe variations

You can add a twist to your gin bramble cocktail depending on the season, or your preferences: 

  • Why not top with a splash of champagne to create a bramble royale?
  • Swap the Crème de Mure for Crème de Peche to create a summery peach-flavoured concoction instead.
  • Add 25ml of grapefruit juice to your mixture before shaking, and garnish with a grapefruit slice or peel to create a ‘wibble’. 
  • If you struggle to get hold of Crème de Mure for drizzling, you can swap it for Chambord, a black raspberry liquor, and garnish with fresh raspberries for a ‘ramble’. 

Wessex Distillery’s award-winning Alfred the Great gin is the perfect ingredient for a gin bramble, due to it’s well-balanced and smooth flavours that perfectly complement the sweet and sour tones of blackberry and lemon. All our gins are carefully crafted and made in our family-run distillery in the heart of Surrey; try them for yourself today.

BUY ALFRED THE GREAT PREMIUM GIN

Share Your Results

Once you’ve made your gin bramble using our recipe, share a picture on social media and tag Wessex Distillery on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter so we can share it with our audience! You can also browse our selection of gin cocktail recipes that offers a different type of drink for every occasion. 

Gin Recipes