🍦 Kulfi Cocktail

Milk-washed gin, condensed milk, cardamom, saffron, almond & kewda water

Gin (Milk-Washed)
4 hrs
Milk clarification + build
Nick & Nora Glass
~18%
Indian Accent
Ingredients
  • 200ml Bombay Sapphire gin
  • 50ml sweetened condensed milk
  • 6 saffron strands, steeped in 20ml warm milk for 30 min
  • ½ tsp ground cardamom
  • 2 tbsp blanched almonds, blended with 50ml water and strained
  • 10ml kewra (kewda) water
  • 10ml fresh lime juice
Method
  1. 1
    Wash ginCombine gin, condensed milk, and saffron milk. Mix well. Freeze for 2 hours (the milk fat solidifies). Strain through a fine sieve lined with muslin — the fat stays above, clarified spirit goes through.
  2. 2
    MixCombine 60ml clarified kulfi-washed gin, cardamom, almond milk, kewra water, and lime juice in a mixing glass with ice.
  3. 3
    StirStir gently 20–25 seconds — do not shake this cocktail.
  4. 4
    StrainFine-strain into a chilled Nick & Nora glass.
  5. 5
    GarnishFloat 2 saffron strands. Add a fragment of edible gold leaf or 2–3 dried rose petals.

About This Cocktail

Indian Accent is one of India's most acclaimed fine dining restaurants, with a philosophy of reinterpreting classic Indian flavours through modern techniques. The Kulfi Cocktail — their signature — takes kulfi (the dense, slow-frozen Indian ice cream made from condensed milk, cardamom, saffron, and nuts) and deconstructs it into a cocktail using milk clarification: gin is 'washed' through condensed milk, which strips the spirit's harshness while adding its creamy sweetness and then is clarified away, leaving an impossibly smooth, faintly sweet, clear spirit that carries the essence of the milk.

Variations

Rose KulfiReplace almond milk with rose syrup + a few drops of rose water — the rose-saffron-cardamom combination is equally authentic to the kulfi tradition
Matka Kulfi StyleServe in a small terracotta cup (matka) over crushed ice — the clay imparts a subtle earthy minerality, exactly like a real matka kulfi
Zero-ProofReplace gin with cold coconut water clarified through the same condensed milk process — remarkably convincing
Bartender Tips

The fat-washing technique (here using condensed milk instead of the usual butter or oils) gives the gin a remarkable silky mouthfeel and strips its juniper sharpness completely. Kewra water (screwpine essence) is one of the defining aromatic notes in Mughal sweets and kulfi — it is to Indian desserts what vanilla is to Western ones. Available at every Indian grocery store. Bombay Sapphire's clean, citrus-forward profile is ideal for this technique — heavily botanical gins can overwhelm the kulfi flavours.

Source Restaurant
Restaurant
Indian Accent, The Lodhi Hotel, New Delhi, India
Spirit
Gin (Milk-Washed)
Method
Milk clarification + build
ABV
~18%
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Where to drink this
Restaurant
Indian Accent
Address
The Lodhi Hotel, Lodhi Road, New Delhi 110003, India
Style
Modern Indian fine dining
Accolades
No. 1 on India's 50 Best Restaurants · Top 100 Asia's 50 Best · James Beard nominated

The original Indian Accent at The Lodhi Hotel in New Delhi is where Manish Mehrotra transformed the conversation about Indian cuisine globally. This is the flagship — a restaurant that takes every regional Indian ingredient and technique seriously, then reimagines it with the confidence of a kitchen that has mastered the grammar before rewriting the language. The cocktail programme is equally considered.

Visit indianaccent.com