Watermelon Basil Daiquiri

 

Watermelon, so sweet and refreshing and so delicious with rum. I've seen variations of this drink for a while now and I'm sure you can replace the rum with vodka (just don't call it a daiquiri!).

This makes enough for 4 drinks
1/4 good sized watermelon cut into cubes and pureed in blender with 16-20 basil leaves. Strain into mixing jug/shaker
8 oz white rum like Bacardi
4 tbsp. fresh lime juice
4 tbsp. simple syrup


Mix them all up (or shake) and pour over lots of ice. If you were making just one at a time - muddle the watermelon and basil in bottom of shaker, add ice and rest of ingredients and then strain before serving.

Serve with a thin slice of frozen watermelon and basil leaf.

This is what summer tastes like.

Tom's Medley

 

Tom knows only a smattering of lines from a few songs and strings them together in a fashion all his own. It gets a sing-song going and takes the party up a notch. We call it “Tom’s Medley’.  He visited us recently and I knew I had to have a cocktail with this name; and I worked with the guidelines of it having Jack Daniels (his favorite tipple) and a smattering of a few other libations so I started with many a barman’s nightmare - the Long Island Ice Tea.

This is what we had. And then we had another one. Doesn’t look pretty but neither did we after a few more…

1 oz Jack Daniels bourbon

¼ oz gin

¼ oz vodka

¼ oz white rum

¼ oz triple sec

¼ oz fresh lime juice

¼ oz orange juice

Splash of cola

Cherry Blossom Mix off

 

It's spring! It's cherry blossom time in DC! Well, it should be but the weather has been too chilly for the tender blossoms so they're staying where they are for now and who would blame them. Still, blossoms or not - it didn't stop us on our quest to bring in the spring with a little drinkie and it ended in a little mix off.

Which one do you think wins this mix off?

Himself riffed on a drink called Paddington which he found on Mixologist app and it was next to perfect - grapefruit juice is a favorite of ours and the color was spot on.

1 1/2 oz Bacardi light rum
1/2 oz Lillet Blanc
1 splash of Ricard pastis
1/2 oz freshly squeezed grapefruit juice
1/2 oz freshly squeezed lemon juice

Shake with ice and garnish with grapefruit twist.

I went down a more literal route and mixed a cherry-smash-saketini type of drink and it was equally good and let's face it more original than his!

3 frozen whole cherries
tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
tsp sugar
1 oz Bombay London Dry Gin
3 oz Fu-ki sake

Muddle the cherries with the lemon juice and sugar, then add the gin and the chilled sake. We keep our gin in the freezer and the sake was chilled so no ice was needed for the mixing. Strain the mixture into a cocktail glass and garnish with a cherry.

Here's to some cherry blossoms! Eventually.