Fruity Gin & Soda

Whew! August has been a busy month! I was taking on photography gigs, getting my business up and running, and planning our Labor Day week vacay as well as the cookout we hosted for friends in our apartment complex's courtyard - and that was all in my spare time! Add to that traveling for work and being busy at my day job, and very little time was left for food blogging. Sad face. Thank goodness I managed to squeeze in a few homemade recipes at our cookout so I could get some blog recipes out of that occasion! Two birds, one stone, as they say.

As I mentioned, my boyfriend and I hosted a cookout for some local friends this past weekend. We have a really cool, large courtyard area in the center of our building that boasts grills, patio tables, fire pits, and a grassy (turf) play area. We don't take advantage of it enough, so decided it would be nice to have a few friends over to enjoy the space. We lucked out with a remarkably pleasant evening for mid-August - low humidity and cooler temps. Good friends, good food - it was a good time!

The cruxt of any good courtyard cookout is of course the food, but what really sets the mood are the cocktails. Our friends Lauren and Scott brought over a deliciously refreshing cucumber vodka drink that they turned into shots to get the party going! haha And I made this equally refreshing summer cocktail that I'm sharing with you today. The inspiration for this drink was my low-sugar diet. I've found that gin is a low carb alcohol that doesn't affect me much at all in terms of my health issues, so I've been trying to stick with good ol' fashioned gin and soda, lots of lime to make it 'interesting.' (Tonic contains sugar; club soda does not.) I knew I wanted to have a drink or two at our cookout, so I decided to create a cocktail based around my go-to G&S.

Wanting to keep my drink low carb, I chose to include some low-glycemic fruit: apricots. And my boyfriend is growing sage in our balcony gardgen, so I grabbed some of that. I thought I'd add some fresh ginger to brighten up the drink and threw some lemon juice in as well to add a little acidity and zing along with the ginger. I think everyone enjoyed the drink and didn't even take much notice that it was low-carb / low glycemic. #winning

OK, let's get drinkin'!

Fruity Gin & Soda

Fruit Muddle
Servings: 12
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: n/a

Ingredients:
5 apricots, skin removed and flesh diced
Juice of one lemon
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
10 small sage leaves (or 5 large ones)

Add all ingredients to a large mason jar or glass food storage container. Something decorative is nice if you're having a party.

Muddle the sage leaves into the apricots and ginger.

Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Drink
Servings: 1 mason jar cocktail
Prep time: 3 minutes
Cooking time: n/a

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon fruit muddle (recipe above)
1 shot gin (I used Tanguerey)
1 teaspoon agave nectar
1 handful ice
2 shots club soda
1 lemon wedge for garnish

Add the fruit muddle concoction, gin, agave, and ice to a cocktail shaker.

Put the lid on the shaker and shake vigorously for about ten seconds.

Pop off the lid and pour all of the ingredients into your cocktail glass.

Top it off with the shots of club soda and stir with a decorate straw.

Add the lemon wedge to the glass rim and serve immediately.

Salute!