Life Gives You Lemons (and Rhubarb)? Make Cocktails!

You know what it's like: It's cocktail hour and a gin and tonic would taste really good, but you're out of tonic and all the limes in the fridge are brown and shriveled. Which rules out a gimlet, a caipirinha or a margarita.

But wait…there are lemons, and you just made a batch of rhubarb syrup so your nephew could have his favorite thing at auntie's house, her fabulous rhubarb soda.

Since that was precisely the situation I found myself in the other day, I cast my mind way, way back to the 1990s and what popped into my head was that chichi happy hour cocktail—and the bane of bartenders everywhere—the lemon drop! I simply substituted the rhubarb syrup for the simple syrup and, voilà, cocktail hour was saved. Huzzah!

Rhubarb Lemon Drop

For the syrup:
Rhubarb
Water
Sugar

For the cocktail:
2 lemons, juiced
2 1/2 oz. vodka
1 1/2 oz. rhubarb syrup
3/4 oz. triple sec
Sugar for the rim

For the syrup, wash rhubarb and chop stalks crosswise into 1/2" pieces. Place in saucepan and add water to cover. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes. Pour rhubarb mixture through a sieve into a medium-sized mixing bowl to strain off solids. Add equal amount of sugar to the strained liquid (you're making a 1:1 simple syrup) and stir until sugar is completely dissolved. Cool. The syrup can be stored in pint jars in the freezer to keep you well-supplied until next rhubarb season.

For the cocktail, make a sugar rim on the glass by slicing partway through a wedge of lemon and running it around the edge of your glasses. Make a mound of sugar on a plate and, inserting the edge of the glass into the mound at a 45° angle, twirl the edge of the glass  fill cocktail shaker 2/3 full of ice and add all ingredients. Shake 15-20 seconds. Pour into sugar-rimmed martini glasses and serve.

Perfect Timing: The Good Fairy Reappears!

Dave and I were talking about making a batch of our raspberry-lavender infused vodka when the doorbell rang and the dogs exploded into a snarling, snapping rage as they scrambled to be the first to disembowel whomever was at the front door. It turned into docile whimpering as soon as they realized that the good fairy had returned, this time with an armload of fabulously scented wands of fresh lavender from her garden. (Corgis know who butters their biscuits or, perhaps, gives them chicken strips) So with a minimum of effort we were within a week of serving some of Dave's famous raspberry-lavender lemon drops. How lucky are we?

Raspberry-Lavender Lemon Drops

For the infused vodka:
2 pints raspberries
1-2 Tbsp. dried lavender flowers
1 bottle vodka (we prefer Monopolowa)

For the cocktail:
2 lemons, juiced
2 1/2 oz. infused vodka (2 scant jiggers)*
1 1/4 oz. simple syrup (1 scant jigger)
3/4 oz. triple sec (1/2 scant jigger)

To make the infused vodka, mash raspberries in large non-reactive bowl. Mix in lavender flowers and vodka. Cover and place in refrigerator for at least one week. Strain through fine mesh sieve or, to remove all residual pulp, strain through coffee filter. Store in refrigerator.

For the cocktail, fill cocktail shaker 2/3 full of ice and add all ingredients. Shake 15-20 seconds. Pour into sugar-rimmed martini glasses and serve.

* For regular lemon drops, use straight vodka.

Makes 2 cocktails.

Berry Delicious

When berry season comes around, I'm one of those people you see at the farmers' market hauling flats of berries to the car. Not that it's a bad thing, but when you consider I'm also carrying several bags of produce along, too, it gets to be a bit precarious. But I just can't seem to resist the siren song of those luscious baskets of Hood strawberries, red raspberries, marionberries, blueberries and blackberries.

There's nothing like a great fruit crisp made from equal parts raspberries, blueberries and blackberries, or in the middle of January pulling bags out of the freezer and making smoothies, bringing back the warmth and sunshine of those fleeting summer months. Lately we've been incorporating the bounty of our region's berries into our own infused vodkas, mashing up the fruit in a bowl, maybe throwing an herb or two in with a bottle of vodka and letting it sit for a week or so in the fridge.

My friend Michel came up with a recipe for raspberry-lavender lemon drops using her own infused vodka, and we just made some with the first of the season's raspberries and inexpensive Monopolowa vodka. You can download the recipe and try it yourself at next weekend's barbecues. From the reaction we got serving the first batch to the neighbors, I guarantee you'll be the most popular person at the party.