Vegetable cocktails are having a moment

"Savoury sippers are in, with vegetables filling cocktail glasses across the capital and beyond," said Charlotte Lytton in The Times. "Allotment-inspired cocktails", ranging from wild carrot margaritas to mung bean old-fashioneds, have cropped up, showcasing locally sourced produce while inventing drinks that are "glamorous and tasty".

The current trend can be traced back to 2010, when bartender Jimmy Barrat created the "Tomatini" at La Petite Maison's Dubai outpost. Missing his hometown in the south of France, he came up with a novel tipple: a heady mix of fresh tomatoes, Ketel One vodka and white balsamic vinegar. The cocktail is smooth and "surprisingly light" with the tomato very much taking "centre stage". "Drinking your veg, it transpires, can be delicious after all."

But "people have been drinking their vegetables since the 1920s", when Fernand "Pete" Petiot is said to have created the Bloody Mary by combining tomato juice, vodka, spices and lemon juice at a New York bar, said Rosanna Dodds in the Financial Times.

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Today, mixologists are becoming more "adventurous" and using ingredients that may otherwise have ended up in the rubbish. The Gleneagles hotel in Scotland, for example, uses "discarded cucumber ends, aubergine skins and avocado stones" to craft elegant cocktails, while the Michelin-starred restaurant Apricity in London transforms "upcycled Brussels sprouts" into martinis.

"Besides, who said a vegetable has to be savoury?" Naturally sweet vegetables like carrots, beetroots and parsnips can make a delicious alternative to fruit-based cocktails. An added benefit is the chance for mixologists to incorporate "superfoods" into their recipes; Yannick Alleno's restaurant Pavyllon in London makes a "Boulevard of Desire" cocktail with mushroom white port and a garnish of antioxidant-packed enoki mushrooms.

I tried making a "pickletini" based on a recipe by Dima's Vodka at home, said Stuart Heritage in The Guardian. While there's a "lovely simplicity" to the "classic James Bond-style martini", this one also includes pickle juice, which means that "inevitably, the whole drink tastes like gherkins". "There is a reason that 007 never sidled up to a bar and growled: 'Martini. Shaken not stirred. And can you make it taste like the worst bit of a Big Mac, please?'"

In the journey towards more savoury drinks, said Tony Turnbull in The Times, could "cheese-based cocktails" be next? It may sound "fanciful", but Firebird restaurant in Soho has already crafted the horiatiki martini with feta and oregano-infused gin, cucumber bitters and red pepper vermouth. "Greek salad in a glass, anyone?"