Although it's been a cool, rainy spring here in Southern Ontario, strawberry season will soon be upon us. What better way to start off our series of fruit-themed cocktails than with a taste of the first fruit of summer?
You'll need to start by adding about a cup of ice to your cocktail shaker. Then toss in a couple of strawberries (frozen are fine; just let them thaw first). Cutting them up into several pieces will help purée them when you start shaking.
Next, measure three ounces of lemonade and pour that into the shaker. About the lemonade: you can always make your own of course, and if you do, I salute you. But there's no shame in using a good quality substitute. Most refrigerated lemonades from the supermarket have additions such as citric acid and cellulose gum. You want to avoid them. But Minute Maid Lemonade frozen concentrate is free of additives, and that's what I used.
Another advantage of using frozen concentrated lemonade is that, instead of following the instructions on the container and adding four cans of water when reconstituting it, I added only two. This gave me a much stronger mix, so that when my lemonade was diluted by the ice in the shaker, and again by the melting ice in the glass, it didn't taste weak.
This recipe is based on one which appeared in an LCBO advertising insert in the weekend paper a while back, and it called for an ounce and a half of vodka. I also tried the drink with gin and with white rum. I preferred the gin version, but feel free to use whichever you prefer or have on hand.
Add the liquor to the shaker and shake vigourously for about 30 seconds. Strain into a Collins glass that's half filled with ice (a Collins glass is a tall glass that holds about 12 ounces). Put your feet up, sip through a straw, and sigh with contentment.
In case you'd like to try any of last summer's cocktails, here are links to those posts:
- Margarita
- Sangria
- Aprodite (a pineapple drink)
- Long Island Iced Tea
- Frugal Cocktails
- Mojito
- Mint Julep
- Peach Daiquiri
Just mouse over the name of the cocktail and click on it to go to the post. Click on your browser's back button to return to this post.
Cheers!
No comments:
Post a Comment