3 of Outlander star Sam Heughan’s craft cocktails to rustle up at home

After a series of Clanlands books and his memoir, Waypoints, Scottish actor Sam Heughan has taken a detour into the world of spirits.

“The adventures, and I guess the experiences and passion that I have, I’m an enthusiast for sure,” says Heughan, whose new book, The Cocktail Diaries, is a deep-dive into the world of mixology.

Co-founder of award-winning Sassenach Spirits, with a portfolio of three carefully curated spirits – whisky, gin and a reposado tequila – the 45-year-old says his journey into the drinks world began when he returned back to Scotland to shoot Outlander.

“And I fell in love with my home country again. I’ve always loved whisky, but it was kind of an emotional thing for me.

“I was in London. I was a jobbing actor, and missing home,” recounts Heughan. “I hadn’t really ever touched whisky before then, I was in my mid-20s. And one Burns Night, I went to a local bar and had a single malt whisky… and the smell of it, the taste of it.

“And I was with a Sottish friend of mine, and it sort of transported me back to Scotland. I felt very homesick, and it was very comforting this glass of whisky, sort of like a hug in a glass.”

And from that point on, Heughan says he really started experimenting with whiskies, and enjoying it more and more.

“And then over the years, and most recently, created my own whisky brand; and that journey has really been extended or enriched by the sort of people I’ve met, and travels I’ve been on.”

With a successful career in theatre, television and film, the globe-trotting actor’s returning to the stage – making his RSC debut in the title role of Macbeth next month at The Other Place in Stratford-upon-Avon (Oct 9 to Dec 6).

But where to start with spirits, and what draws him to them? “I think for me, it’s all about the craft, and once you start to get into it, and why people love these spirits so much , is that they’re so complex.”

“There’re so many factors involved with whisky. Obviously it’s down to making a great spirit, but then how you age it, where you age it, and how you finish it… and these wonderful nuances that can affect it.

“And it really is a living thing. If you have the the same whisky over five years or 10 years… it’s changed completely.”

Going on from that, Heughan says he finds gin really fascinating. “Obviously, in the UK, we’re a bit inundated with different gin brands, but it’s so interesting to be able to create something that’s the exact, or replica, or characteristics of Galloway, for instance, for my Wild Scottish Gin.”

Proud of his Scottish heritage, Heughan describes how he was brought up in rural Scotland (New Galloway), “in the grounds of an old castle,” and says the botanicals are all tied to his childhood memories. “I wanted to make something that really reflected the landscape, forests and the glens of Galloway.”

Taking his time, “a very, very long time,” Heughan says they made 18 different distillates before even finalising on the final one. “We distilled 40 different botanicals individually to try each one, to see which we liked and worked well together. A lot of R & D [research and development] went into that.”

And then going into tequila and other spirits as well…. “It’s so interesting on my travels, just seeing the similarities and differences.”

A big fan of Mexico, where the adventurer has spent a lot of time: “I just love the culture there, the storytelling that goes around it [tequila], the history, and of course, the process is so interesting.

“When you see, perhaps a mezcal maker in the mountains of Oaxaca, and they’re digging a pit and baking agave underground.”

He continues: “It’s the process or craft of making the spirit… and then leading into cocktails is so interesting – because that’s yet another infinite amount of possibilities, of things you can make.”

Ready to whet your whistle?

1. Tommy’s Margarita

“My friend Julio Bermejo is a walking tequila library – he travels the world sharing his extensive knowledge and knows more about the subject than anybody in Santiago de Tequila, the town in Jalisco state in Mexico that gave the drink its name,” writes Heughan.

“Instead of the triple sec of the classic margarita recipe, Bermejo uses agave syrup. Despite being a simple, three-ingredient drink, this one is interesting because it really highlights the tequila you use,” explains Heughan.

Ingredients: 60ml reposado tequila, 30ml freshly squeezed lime juice, 15ml agave syrup, salt and lime wedge to garnish.

Method: Salt rim the glass (optional) and fill with cubed ice. Half-fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Add the ingredients, shake to chill, strain into the glass. Garnish with a lime wedge.

2. Boulevardier

“Ah, Paris! The city of light and romance. I’ve long been obsessed with Paris: Eating freshly baked patisseries, following in the footsteps of bohemian Montmartre artists, wandering the boulevards,” writes Heughan.

“In many ways, I’ve been just as obsessed with this drink, which was invented by fellow Scot Harry MacElhone.

“It’s basically a Negroni using bourbon in place of the gin,” he highlights.

Ingredients: 45ml bourbon whiskey, 22.5ml Campari, 22.5ml sweet vermouth. Orange twist to garnish.

Method: Fill a mixing glass with cubed ice and add the ingredients. Stir with a long bar spoon for 20 to 30 seconds to chill. Strain into a glass with one large ice cube. Garnish with an orange twist.

3. Sam’s Garden Appletini

“I made this for a party I gave at my house in Scotland to celebrate the end of Outlander,” writes Heughan. “I’m lucky to have several apple trees there but they’d never borne any fruit.

“Maybe they knew I’d come to the end of my journey with Outlander, because that year they produced an enormous amount of sour green apples, too sour to eat.

“I thought next best thing would be to put them into a cocktail and left them to infuse in the alcohol for a few days. Once strained, it had this beautiful pale green colour that I stirred some vermouth into and it went down a storm at the party.”

Ingredients: One bottle of The Sassenach Wild Scottish Gin (£44.45, 70cl, Master of Malt), one bottle of vodka, medium dry vermouth, 10 apples sliced. Garnish with Granny Smith apples.

Method: Combine the bottles of gin and vodka with the sliced green apples in a large container. Cover and let infuse for two to three days.

To make an individual cocktail once infused, fill a mixing glass with ice, add 60ml of the batch and 30ml of vermouth. Stir with a bar spoon to chill. Strain into a chilled coupe. Garnish with two thin slices of apple.

The Cocktail Diaries – A Spirited Adventure, by Sam Heughan, is published in hardback by Quadrille, priced £20. Photography Matt Russell. Available now.