Cocktail Hour

 When its hot outside, there's nothing better than a cool, refreshing summer drink. And using fresh summer flavors make any cocktail (alcoholic or non-) even more special. A peek at the (very hip) craft-cocktail movement reveals the use of completely unexpected flavors in today's drinks - often to extremely refreshing effect. Specifically, the use of uniquely flavored bitters, herbs, vegetables, and even tinctures and oils have introduced entirely new flavor profiles to imbibing.

This past weekend, I was invited to Sunday lunch at a friend's home and was tasked with bringing along some type of mixer for our cocktails. The host suggested making a "mojito" of sorts with basil, mint and cucumber. I decided to take it a step further and create some syrups that could be mixed with seltzer to make both a refreshing fizzy drink or a mixer for gin or vodka.

In the end, I made two syrups - my host's suggested combination as well as a strawberry rhubarb (because I had leftover strawberries that were over-ripe and a MOUNTAIN of rhubarb in the backyard). For a first go-'round, I think they came out really well. The kids particularly enjoyed the "strawberry soda" and the adults tried both concoctions with either gin or vodka. My favorite was gin mixed with the cucumber syrup.

Today, I'm going to share the recipes for the two syrups with the caveat that I'm still experimenting and I reserve the right to update the recipes at a future date. Since the basic construction is the same, you can do this with nearly any fruit/vegetable/herb/etc. If you start experimenting and come up with anything particularly awesome, please share in our comments section. Thanks!!

Please remember to drink adult beverages responsibly!

- Alex

Strawberry-Rhubarb Syrup

2 C water

1.5 C sugar (you can use up to 2 C sugar but that's too sweet for me)
Juice from one lemon
1 C strawberries (cut up)
2 C rhubarb (chopped)

Combine all ingredients in a pan. Bring to a boil, stirring often to dissolve the sugar. Then lower heat to a simmer and cook for approximately 30 minutes, uncovered. Once the strawberries start losing their color, use a potato masher to mash the strawberries and rhubarb in the syrup. Turn off heat and let the pan sit and cool for a little bit. Then, through a fine mesh strainer, strain the mixture into a Mason jar or similar, glass container. Use the back of a spoon to push the liquid through the strainer.

I reserved the strawberry/rhubarb mush to put on ice cream.

Let the syrup cool completely then mix with seltzer for a fizzy strawberry/rhubarb soda. If you're over the legal drinking age, try it with vodka, gin, or white rum!


Cucumber Basil Mint Syrup

2 C water
1.5 C sugar or less (this particular syrup was WAY too sweet with 1.75 C of sugar which is why I'm still experimenting...)
2 large cucumbers (cut up) - approx 2 C
1 C basil leaves
1/2 C mint leaves

Combine all ingredients in a pan. Bring to a boil, stirring often to dissolve the sugar. Then lower heat to a simmer and cook for approximately 30 minutes, uncovered. Once the cucumbers are very soft, use a potato masher to mass the cucumbers and basil/mint leaves in the syrup. Turn off heat and let the pan sit and cool for a little bit. Then, through a fine mesh strainer, strain the mixture into a Mason jar or similar, glass container. Use the back of a spoon to push the liquid through the strainer.

Let the syrup cool completely then mix with seltzer for a fizzy, refreshing herb/cucumber soda. If you're over the legal drinking age, try it with vodka, gin, or white rum!

Sweet-Tart

Lately it seems like the entire blogosphere has been taken over by posts about strawberry and rhubarb. Totally understandable. Everyone gets so excited about the advent of summer that we can't keep a lid on our trips to the farmer's market or the blooming peonies in our yards. I know here in the Midwest we have a precious few months of pure summer, so we hold them dear.

Lilacs at the Madison Farmer's Market.

And this isn't even a crowded day.

So, I'm going to add to the many posts about strawberry and rhubarb...

This weekend I did something new - I made jelly (strawberry-rhubarb, of course!) Now, many of you are probably seasoned jelly-making veterans but  I'm a complete newbie. My only resource was my cousin Julie who has a thimbleful of knowledge on this subject so she invited me over to help with the sweet, sticky mess.

This is the brand we chose to run with.

We followed the directions for cooked jam by the trusted experts at the Sure Jell company. Since neither Julie nor I are particularly good at math, deciphering the ratios of the fruit to pectin caused a little bit of heartache, but we didn't let that stop us. (I am the queen of "eyeballing" it, btw.) I don't really have a recipe to share with you since, like I said, we just followed the instructions on the box but I can tell you that one of the modifications we made to the original recipe was to not add the butter. It seemed arbitrary and in the end our finished product was just fine without it.

Cutting up pints and pints of strawberries.

Cooking down rhubarb until it became mush.

The other recipe alteration we made was to cut way back on the sugar because we were trying to achieve a jelly that is a little bit more tart. I think we added half the amount that was called for on the box.

Skimming, skimming, and more foam skimming.

 Neither of us has a proper canning pot with a basket (I am going to remedy that shortly) so we made "freezer jelly". That means that, once the jars are filled and cooled, they were popped into the freezer - except for one that went in the fridge for immediate use. And wow! It is seriously tasty! Sweet, tart and curiously fresh tasting compared to store-bought jelly.

Jars of goodness waiting to be frozen.

The effort was enough of a success that I now have the jelly-making bug. I would really, really, like to try this again - and get better at it. Since this adventure, I have been browsing for recipes on the web and dreaming about all sorts of flavors. Overall, the process was pretty easy and yet it helped satisfy that "pioneer" urge I get to make things from scratch.

–Cassandra (aka Half Pint)