As a youngster, I considered it a tragedy that the carbonated beverage Tango had a range of fruity flavours, but had never gone down the mango route, thus depriving the British consumer of the pleasure of walking into a corner shop and asking for a can of mango Tango.*
Also, mangoes are great, very much in my top five of Fruit With Ridiculous Seeds, just ahead of pomegranates and passion fruit. Who could resist a fruit into which nature has for some reason inserted a surfboard? Not I, which is why I eat half a mango most days.
The other half of that mango goes to my other half. I think I knew she was a keeper when, through her Punjabi family, she introduced me to the Alphonso mango. You might have assumed that Alphonso Mango was a member of AC Milan’s 1969 European Cup-winning squad, but you would be wrong. Dead wrong. It is, in fact, a mango so fragrant and sweet it makes your average supermarket mango look and taste like a mud pie with a rock in it.
Conscious of the frankly disturbing centrality of the mango to our domestic life, our friend the cold-water swimmer and Hey Duggee! wrangler Jenny Landreth bought us a bottle of Maison Briottet crème de mangue a while back. After a bit of experimentation with rum, I settled on the cocktail below. Jenny was the mutual friend who introduced us, so it seemed appropriate that I name the cocktail after the road (and wine bar) where we had our first date, Penny Lane.**
It’s a bit like a mango-flavoured gimlet, although it uses lime juice and simple syrup, rather than a lime cordial. I prefer the freshness of lime juice anyway, so stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
The Penny Lane
45ml / 1.5oz London dry gin (bog-standard Tanqueray or Bombay Sapphire work well)
15ml / 0.5oz crème de mangue
30ml / 1oz freshly squeezed lime juice
15ml / 0.5oz rich simple syrup (2 parts caster sugar to 1 part water)
2 dashes orange bitters (I use Angostura orange bitters, but you can use whatever you like)
Twist of lime peel
Mix the gin, mango liqueur, lime juice, syrup, and bitters in a shaking tin, and shake with ice for 10-15 seconds. Double strain into a Nick & Nora glass or coupe, and garnish with the lime peel.
* I am indebted to the Bluesky poster @jimllmixit for informing me of the recent introduction of the mango Tango, and the absolute ruination of my opening paragraph.
** And yes, it is that Penny Lane, although the song Penny Lane is not actually about the road Penny Lane. Penny Lane refers to the area in Liverpool, mostly Allerton Road and Smithdown Place, where the road Penny Lane is situated. I appreciate that this is a complicated explanation, which is probably why Paul McCartney left out the verse which ran:
Penny Lane itself, there isn’t very much to see
And the wine bar won’t open till the mid-eighties.
But there is a fairly good Chinese
For your takeaway. Anyway…
Gary Bainbridge 