‘Garnish with (wasted) thyme’: Sir Jonathan Jones’s No.10 cocktail recipe

This cocktail is bang up to date, says former perm sec of the Government Legal Department amid Downing Street infighting
Photo: ambernambrose/Flickr/(CC BY-ND 2.0)

By Civil Service World

13 Nov 2020

The government's former top lawyer, Sir Jonathan Jones, has shared a cocktail recipe that civil servants could be drinking this weekend following the latest political intrigue in Downing Street.

In an acerbic Twitter post, Jones, who quit his role as permanent secretary of the Government Legal Department and Treasury solicitor after the government decided to back out of elements of last year’s Brexit deal relating to Northern Ireland, sought suggestions from Twitter users for the name of his concoction. 

His tweet followed the announcement of the departure of Lee Cain as the prime minister’s head of communications, but before it was known that Dominic Cummings, the PM’s top adviser, would also leave government before the year is out.

“Now this cocktail is bang up to date,” said Jones. “No.10 gin. Highly corrosive acid (lime juice). More heat than light (ginger liqueur). Shake chaotically over shards of ice until melt-down. Add media froth (champagne). Garnish w/ tears and (wasted) thyme. Do suggest names.”

Among the suggestions from Twitter users for a name for the drink was The OutLaw, Best served cold, and Truth Twister – a reference to another "unauthorised" tweet sent from a government account amid a row over Cummings's breach of lockdown rules.

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