Arguably the best thing about summer is the abundance of beautiful, colourful, ripe fruit. Being a gal who likes to enjoy the odd beverage, I'm more than happy to trade in my normal glass of red wine and take advantage of such a circumstance by muddling, slicing, freezing and blending my favourite fruits into lovely and refreshing cocktails.
I recently purchased the KitchenAid citrus juicer for my stand mixer and I'm taking advantage of how easy it now is for me to make lots of lemon and lime juice, which is perfect for a not-too-sweet cocktail.
Naturally my first drink would be of the lemonade variety...I went for Old-Fashioned Lemonade with mint and Gordon's gin. Shake together of lemon juice, sugar, mint leaves, gin and top with sparkling water. Sprite or tonic water would work too, I'd just put in less (or even no) sugar. Another nice version is to put fresh thyme in the drink instead of the mint leaves, and for that one I used Hendrick's gin...what, you don't have more than 1 kind of gin at home?
Lemonade gets a nice perk-up with some strawberries muddled in, or raspberries or blueberries. I used gin again because that's what I like, but vodka would work well here, or rum. I think I liked this better than the regular lemonade.
Staying with the same idea, I decided to make a Raspberry Limeade with mint and local raspberries, kind of like a raspberry mojito but using white sugar instead of cane sugar and with gin (I don't like rum, thus I don't keep it around the house). Super yummy!
Straying from the citrus-based drinks, I made an Amaretto Fruit Punch by muddling some cherries and then adding amaretto, pineapple juice and sparkling water. I needed to top it up with the water because I didn't have much pineapple juice, but it was a little weak so I think next time I won't add any at first and see if it's better. Still, a lovely flavour.
I bought pomegranate juice in order to make my own grenadine (see this blog if you want to do it too) and I had some leftover, so I blended it with ice, watermelon, some of the grenadine and some vodka for a tangy and anti-oxidant-rich blender drink.
Sticking with the blender and watermelon, I tried out the flavours of a Watermelon Margarita. Crushed ice, watermelon chunks, lime juice, tequila and triple sec were combined in the blender to make this frosty special. I can't say that I would prefer it to a normal lime margarita, but it was a nice and refreshing change to the everyday drink.
Lastly, I used the watermelon juice from the bottom of the container (I like to cut my watermelon into chunks and store them in the refrigerator for a quick bite whenever I want a little juicy goodness) to and tried out a Watermelon Cosmo. Watermelon juice (replacing, of course, the traditional cranberry juice), lime juice, vodka and triple sec make a nice summer martini to sip in the backyard. If you're not sure, a simple splashing together of watermelon juice and vodka would do the trick, try garnishing with a wedge of cucumber, which has similar flavour to the watermelon. Voila, a Watermelon Martini!
The drinks here are only a small sample of the many fruits available throughout the summer: there is so much more experimentation to do! Cheers!
No comments:
Post a Comment