When I made this recipe, I had my friend, Alexis, over for Happy Hour at Home (as we are wont to do) and came up with this cocktail on the fly for us to drink. She had offered to bring a bottle of wine and initially I agreed to that... until I took a peek into my freezer and realized I have WAY too much alcohol chillin' in there (pun intended)! I'm not a huge cocktail drinker, I'm more of a wine or prosecco girl at home, but somehow I have managed to acquire quite the collection of alcohol! From acai spirits to flavored vodkas to a couple of bottles of cachaça, my freezer is practically overflowing with booze! It's confounding. So I figured, why spend money on wine when I already have plenty of alcohol that needs drinking?
I am admittedly hoarding away the cachaça and acai spirits for when I want to make specific drinks, so I decided that the raspberry & peach vodkas would make the perfect subjects for that night's happy hour cockies. I took a whirl around my neighborhood grocery to look for complements to these two flavors and found some things that ended up working out really well.
I was buying some organic lemons for my breakfast smoothies and picked up a couple extras to use in the cocktails. While I was already in the citrus section, I decided to go ahead and grab some limes (what cocktail doesn't benefit from a lime?!) and a grapefruit. I mosied over to the fresh herbs and threw some mint and tarragon in my basket. Mint is standard cocktail fare, but tarragon would be something new and different. And with that, off to the checkout line and into my kitchen.
I had some fresh ginger root and honey laying around, as well as some club soda, so I added those to this drink as well. I feel like cocktails are so fun to play around with - you can use all kinds of unexpected ingredients and somehow just make them work. I love trying new things with my drinks and I'm glad I have the opportunity to share them with you!
I have to say, as far as cocktails go, I feel like this one is pretty low-cal. I usually get vodka-sodas while I'm out at bars because both vodka and club soda are low in calories, and that's essentially what this is. All of the other ingredients are fresh, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say this drink is probably pretty decent for your waistline. Definitely better than beer!
OK let's get mixing! Pucker up!
Citrus Pucker
Servings: 2 small cocktail glasses
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: n/a
Ingredients:
2 quarter-inch thick slices of ginger
4 large mint leaves
4 tarragon leaves
1/2 pink grapefruit, juiced
2 lemons, juiced
2 limes, juiced
2 teaspoons honey
1/4 cup raspberry vodka
1/4 cup peach vodka
1/4 cup club soda
Start by adding the ginger, mint, and tarragon leaves to the bottom of your cocktail glass.
Now, pour all of the fruit juice into your cocktail shaker (or food storage container with a tight fitting lid like I had to use because my shaker broke while making margaritas! Whoopsie...).
Remove the lid and pour in the peach and raspberry vodkas. Add a handful of ice to the container and a handful into each of your cocktail glasses.
Remove the lid and strain the drink into each of your cocktail glasses. Make sure to leave about a half an inch at the top of your glass so you can add the club soda.
Add half of the club soda to the top of each glass and stir.
Put a sprig of mint and tarragon sticking out of each glass.
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