This post was made in partnership with Truvia®. Recipes and ideas are my own.
It’s May, and we are full swing into all the bridal showers, baby showers, outdoor brunches, weddings, and any other excuse you can think of to drink bubbly cocktails outdoors. I consider this to be the height of outdoor drinking season because the breezes are cool here in SoCal and it’s comfortable in the shade. Come August, FORGET IT. I’m inside with the AC on.
It’s no wonder that May also contains National Mimosa Day; in fact, it’s today! If all you know about Mimosas are the cheap, sparkling wine drinks offered “bottomless” at your local brunch spot, let me change that notion with this vibrant, delicious spin on the classic brunch cocktail. We’ve teamed up with Truvia® to add a little zero-calorie, natural sweetness to this fruity, sparkling cocktail.
Orange juice and sparkling wine can be fine, but mostly, just a flat, one note drink. Here I’ve pureed sweet tart strawberries that have been lightly spiced with cardamom and vanilla, and combined that with orange and lime juice, so you have a sour balance to the sweet. The strawberry puree is sweetened with just three Truvia Natural Sweetener packets; no measuring spoons needed!
Now, do me a favor and use a good prosecco or champagne. A Mimosa is not a reason to use that weird bottle someone regifted you sitting in the back of your pantry. If you want a tasty Mimosa, use a good sparkling wine (if you’d drink it on its own, it’s good to use here). You’ll want something dryer to balance out the fruit; this drink is all about balance. Also, if you think that vanilla and cardamom are bold flavors, you’re right! However, mixed in with all the other ingredients here the vanilla is subtle and the cardamom has the perfect amount of kick. It all results in a lovely, springy drink, with fewer calories than the full sugar version thanks to Truvia.
With just a little pre-planning, you can have some gorgeous, tasty drinks for your next outdoor soiree. Happy brunching!
Notes:
- This recipe is easily scalable and can be batched ahead of time minus the sparkling wine.
- If you do not own an immersion blender to make the puree, you can throw the cooked down strawberries into a blender, or just leave a little chunky as-is.
- Make it non-alcoholic! Use a good quality non-alcoholic sparkling wine. They exist now and are really good when you can’t have, or don’t want, the alcohol.
Fresh Strawberry Purée and Mixed Citrus Mimosas
For the strawberry puree:
1 cup chopped strawberries
3 Truvia Natural Sweetener packets
1/2 vanilla bean pod
pinch of ground cardamom (or seeds from 4 green cardamom pods, crushed)
1/4 cup water
Combine chopped strawberries and Truvia packets in a small bowl. Lightly mash together and let sit 10 minutes. In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the mashed strawberries with any juice in the bowl, vanilla pod, ground cardamom, and water. Bring to just under a boil, reduce heat to a simmer and cover for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and discard vanilla pod. Let the strawberries cool to room temperature. Using an immersion blender, blend strawberries until smooth (see note above if immersion blender is not available). Use immediately or store in an air-tight container, refrigerated for up to 3 days.
For the cocktails (yields two cocktails):
2 tablespoons strawberry puree (recipe above), divided
1 ounce freshly squeezed lime juice
6 ounces good quality orange juice
6 ounces prosecco or champagne
strawberry slices and orange wheels for garnish
In two champagne glasses add one tablespoon of strawberry puree each. Mix together the lime juice and orange juice in a large mixing glass and divide between two glasses. Top with 3 ounces each of the sparkling wine. Gently mix to combine. Garnish with strawberry slices and orange wheels. Cheers!
This post was made in partnership with Truvia®. Recipes and ideas are my own.
My very first post on this site was for a Hot Buttered Rum, and it’s been almost that long since I’ve made one again. Today I thought I’d change that and bring you all something with a hint of spring, but that’s still warm and cozy. If the idea of florals in your cocktails makes you a bit wary, I can assure you, this isn’t going to taste like someone dumped your grandmother’s potpourri in your cup.
We’ve teamed up with Truvia to add some sweetness to your cup today. The Truvia Natural Sweetener packets make recipe time so easy and we’ve got two uses for them in our recipes below. The pre-portioned packets mean one less measuring spoon to wash as we’ll need one packet per cup. We’ll also use the packets to crystalize a few rose petals and make the most gorgeous garnish for your cocktail.
Adding butter to a hot drink feels way more common today than it did when I first started writing on there. Now, everyone is putting butter in their coffee or tea… they’re just learning how rich and delicious it makes sipping their drink. In much the same way adding an egg white to a chilled cocktail gives a silky mouthfeel to the drink, adding butter to a hot cocktail has a similar effect. It also feels slightly indulgent, but since we’re using Truvia to sweeten the drink, it’s made with less sugar than if we used ordinary cane sugar.
And the taste? There are lots of warm baking spices mixed in from the aged rum and the butter mix. The roses give a very subtle aroma to the drink when you lean in to take a sip, and the flavors mingle well together with those spices. Make this an indulgent cup to have for a “High Tea” or make a batch for a weekend afternoon get-together.
Rose and Spice Hot Buttered Rum
Crystalized Rose Petals
I also found myself a little sad today that the holiday party season is coming to a close. My quota of warm punches and bottled cocktails was definitely not met. BUT! We still have New Years and I’ve been thinking about the perfect cocktail to serve for that, the last of the year’s parties.
The base of the cocktail uses Everclear to start and I infused that with cinnamon, black pepper, cloves, green cardamom and allspice using my favorite quick infusion method (cream whipper I love you). I keep that separate so that I can tinker with the adjustments to make the final cocktail perfectly spiced; it’s just of the ways I’ve used Everclear this season for cocktails. You can check out the myriad of ways Everclear is transforming craft cocktails as part of their 
If all these spices seem like a lot to go and buy, remember you can purchase in bulk online for cheap. I like having the option of whole spices at home for using in recipes or infusions, and when I need ground spices, I can make them fresh and keep some small jars on hand. It’s a little extra legwork up front for better tasting infusions and food down the line.
Spiced Pear Fizz Cocktail (~28 proof)
About a year ago I saw an article about a new (very old) elixir riding on the coattails of the cocktail world’s shrub renaissance. This drink’s name: Switchel. I think switchel sounds a bit more fun than shrub. Shrub sounds like the friend you have who won’t go out on a Thursday night because they have to turn in a term paper the following Monday and need the time to study. Switchel sounds more like that friend calling you at 4am asking if you want to get doughnuts.
Anyway, Switchel quietly died down and I completely forgot about the saved article. I continued on with shrubs despite the name. (see 
Switchel recipes are all basically the same plus or minus an ingredient or two. It also batches really well. So you can mix up at gallon of it Sunday night and drink it all week.
Guys! Maybe I should back up here a second and remind you that switchel is NON ALCOHOLIC. Just like a shrub it contains no alcohol, but you can use it as a base for your cocktail creations. I even have a recipe for you I’ll link to. The flavor of this switchel on its own is sharp and tangy and almost like drinking a cocktail, or at least that’s what you tell yourself if you’re -cough- well into your second trimester and desperately miss cocktails. So, pregnant ladies out there, you’re welcome.
For my variation on a switchel, I added in some of my favorite Fall flavors: cinnamon, green cardamom, cloves and steeped that in a base of apple cider vinegar, ginger and maple syrup. The spices are subtle when compared to the strong, zingy ginger, but I like that those flavors are not too overpowering. The apple cider vinegar provides a sharp sour contrast that you can adjust by adding or subtracting the water from the mix. Personally I like that sour flavor and I find the drink quite refreshing. If you’ve found shrubs to be a bit too strong for you, you definitely might want to scale back on the vinegar and up the water a bit; taste and see.
This post is brought to you by Everclear. Recipes and ideas are my own.
So, one word of marketing and suddenly figs were a delicacy, not an unidentifiable fruit. Now they’re a common farmer’s market item. They’ve lost a little of their sultry shine but I still find them a touch exotic. And this past week I received a whole basket of them in our CSA box and decided they were ripe for a cocktail.
Today I’m mixing up this cocktail with Everclear as part of their 
Why mix with Everclear? Because I wanted to taste the ingredients and not so much another liquor flavor in the cocktail this time. It also makes for a stronger cocktail that doesn’t get watered down from the tonic. And what a complex tasting cocktail this is!
Letting the muddled figs steep in the Everclear for a bit makes the honeyed juice more prominent. Then to complement the figgy flavor, I created a vanilla syrup that gets some extra warming spice from black pepper, green cardamom, star anise and cloves. The vanilla really comes through but is much more complex in flavor from this spice blend. To offset some of the sweetness, a good dose of tonic water incorporates some bitterness into the cocktail while its effervescent bubbles distribute the flavors and bring out some aroma to your nose. The resulting cocktail is complex and yet clean tasting, refreshing and packs a punch. Ready to try one out?
Fig and Tonic Cocktail (27-32 proof)
