summer cocktail Archives - Food, Booze, & Baggage

This is a take on a dirty martini, with a summer twist. Instead of olive juice, I’m using salted watermelon juice. I’ve been having fun coming up with new cocktails and I couldn’t pass up using a quintessential summer fruit, watermelon. This is a perfect cocktail for summer, especially if you are like me and have a hard time using up all of a watermelon. Multi-tasking, multi-tasking 🙂 I know this cocktail sounds strange, but it really does work!

I used Black Cap Vodka for this cocktail. This is the vodka P and I brought back from Maine, umm over a year ago. We still had not opened it!! This is why I’m playing with so many new cocktail recipes, we need to start using some of this stuff up, instead of using it as decoration 🙂

The Dirty Watermelon

Salted Watermelon Juice

2 heaping cups cubed watermelon (remove as many seeds a possible)
1/2 teaspoon SEA salt
1/4 cup water (if needed)

Place the watermelon and water (if needed) in your blender. If you have a Vita-mix or similar you may not need the water, my blender needs a little liquid to get started. Once all the way blended, add in the salt and blend well. Strain through cheese cloth. I used the coffee filter/pour-over cone trick again. This should give you about 1 1/2 cup juice (once strained).

Dirty Watermelon Martini (1 cocktail)

2 oz vodka
3.5 oz salted watermelon juice

Pour the above into a shaker full of ice. SHAKE, SHAKE, SHAKE! Strain into martini glass, and garnish with watermelon wedge. Best enjoyed immediately and cold…like any good dirty martini 🙂

Cheers friends!!

What are you drinking that says summer to you?

Yes a ginjito, never heard of it? Well, it’s because I just made it up. It’s a mojito type cocktail made with gin instead of rum. This was inspired by Infuse: Oil, Spirit, Water and a Costco gin purchase. I have a huge bottle I got from Costco, but it’s not my favorite. It’s a good brand and all, but not my go-to for gin and tonics. I was overcome by the novelty of buying alcohol at Costco and the cost savings, plus I tend to make snap judgements to just get out of there. So long story, expect lots of infused gin around these parts 🙂 Now back to the cocktail at hand. I like tea, I like gin, why not try them together. I feel like strawberry and mint are great additions to green tea and thus was born the ginjito. It was an experiment of flavors, that was a success!! This is the perfect summer cocktail, very light and refreshing.

Green Tea Gin (yield 1 cup)

1 Tbsp. loose green tea*
1 cup gin

*Go for a milder green tea, don’t use matcha or sencha. If you don’t have loose tea or you don’t want to strain it, you can use bags about 3 bags. I used the pour-over cone and a coffee filter to strain and didn’t lose a drop.

Place tea and gin into a Pint Mason Jar, give it a good shake, and leave at room temperature for 24 hours. Strain tea leaves or remove bags, and place in refrigerator until ready to use.

Strawberry Syrup (yield ½ cup)

2 cups chopped strawberries (about ¾ of a pint)
¾ cup sugar
¾ cup water

Place all ingredients into small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Let boil 2 minutes and then reduce heat to simmer. Simmer for 20 to 30 minutes, you want the strawberries to be very soft. Allow to cool and strain into bottle or jar, refrigerate until ready to use. If it thickens in the fridge you can add a little water and shake it up to thin back out.

The above will give you just enough for a few cocktails, so for a party you would want double or triple the gin and syrup recipes. For a full quart of strawberries do 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water. If you want several cups of syrup just increase using the full pint ratio.

Strawberry Green Tea Ginjito (yield 1 mason jar cocktail)

5-6 fresh mint leaves
2 ½ Tbsp. strawberry syrup (or to taste)
1 cup ice
1 ½ ounce green tea gin
½ cup club soda

Place mint leaves and strawberry syrup into a pint mason jar (or shaker), muddle mint leaves, add in ice, add in green tea gin. Cover and shake well. Add in club soda, stir, and top off with additional ice.

Have you tired infusing your own liquor?

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