Style: August 05, 2022

Style | Drink 61
Style sips
Christchurch-based mixologist Meredith Earle was the deserved
South Island winner of Roots Dry Gin’s recent Show Us Your Roots cocktail competition
for her deliciously captivating cocktail Rōhi – juicy, sweet, salty, complex, compelling,
with a hint of peppery warmth and a hit of rose. Here she shares the secret recipe along
with the inspiration behind her winning drink.
Rōhi
INGREDIENTS
• 45ml Roots Marlborough Dry Gin
• 30ml Mere’s rose cordial
• 12 drops horopito/salt solution
Mere’s rose cordial
• 4g dried rose petals
• 2g pink peppercorns (ground with mortar and pestle)
• 2g grapefruit zest
• 60g sugar
• 100ml water
• 1g malic acid
• 1g citric acid
Horopito/salt solution
• 2g foraged horopito leaf (dehydrated then ground
with mortar and pestle)
• 2g pink Himalayan salt flakes
• 100ml water
METHOD
1. Shake all ingredients and fine strain into a Riedel Nick
& Nora glass or similar.
2. Garnish with a fresh horopito leaf.
Rōhi means Rose in Te Reo Māori – a name passed down from
my nana, Alice Rosie Williams nee Te Atawhai Hema to my
mother, Joanne Rose Earle.
My homemade ‘Mere’s rose cordial’ is inspired by them –
these two women are my roots and have made me the woman
I am today.
I’m incredibly proud to have made this drink in honour of both
of them, especially my mother, who passed away from her battle
with pulmonary artery hypertension on July 14 last year.
The salt reminds me of the Clevedon oyster farm on the way to
Kawakawa Bay, just after our family Mataitai urupā where I feel at
home, while the horopito represents my Māori heritage roots, as
Māori would use it for medicinal purposes.