Put A Little Spring In Your Drink!

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photo credit: Lavender and Lovage, Veranda, Design Sponge

We are all familiar with fruity drinks, but lately there has been a surge of flowery drinks hit­ting the bar scene. We don’t mean flowery as in girlie drinks, these are chic, sophis­ti­cated drinks appre­ci­ated by all. The cur­rent floral trend and use of floral liqueurs is nothing new, in fact it is more rep­re­sen­ta­tive of bar­tenders taping into their mixol­o­gist root. Century-​​old drink recipe books serve as the basis of inspi­ra­tion. Such liqueurs as Creme Yvette (vio­lets), St. Ger­main (elder­flower), Her­saint (anise) and Xaica ( hibiscus) are being used on the most pop­ular drinks today. Cou­pled with splashes of rose or orange water, drinks have become more than just drinks.…they are a glass of Spring!

In our search for drinks that are blooming with taste and style, we found a WONDERFUL article by Annie Thorton of Houzz on Amy Stewart, the author of the NY Times best seller, The Drunken Botanist:

Spring is here. Gar­deners and local food enthu­si­asts are growing ingre­di­ents for their lunches and din­ners, but how about for their drinks? Amy Stewart, author of the New York Times best­seller The Drunken Botanist, has forged a dif­ferent path into edible gar­dening, focusing on our lengthy, and alco­holic, ties to plants.“We’ve been making alco­holic bev­er­ages from plants for at least 10,000 years, and prob­ably longer,” Stewart says. “What I wanted to do with this book was to get people to appre­ciate our long and sto­ried his­tory with plants and alcohol.”In the book, Stewart exam­ines hun­dreds of plants — from rye to jas­mine to fir trees — that have found their way into what we imbibe. “When you walk into a liquor store today, you are seeing bot­tled plants from all over the world,” she says.With the excep­tion of the cheapest prod­ucts, every­thing in a bar or liquor store is made from nat­ural ingre­di­ents. Here, Stewart gra­ciously shares her tips for spring gar­dening — a martini.
by Amy Stewart
photo credit: Amy Stewart
“I’m a big fan of Lillet in the spring,” Stewart says. Lillet (pro­nounced li’le) is a French aper­itif wine infused with orange liqueur and qui­nine, a crys­talline com­pound found in the bark of the cin­chona tree. “It’s won­derful chilled all by itself in a wine glass, or on the rocks, but you can make some nice cock­tails with it, espe­cially with gin.”Extensive research led Stewart to the label of a Dry Fly gin bottle, where she saw that­lavender was listed as an ingre­dient. From there she con­cocted a lavender mar­tini recipe, replacing the dry ver­mouth with Lillet. “Both are made from wine, and both are infused with herbs,” she says. “Lillet is floral and some­what sweet, whereas dry ver­mouth is more dry and bitter.”Stewart explains that gin and lavender go hand in hand. “There’s always a floral ele­ment to gin,” she says, “so adding a little lavender really accen­tu­ates it. Also, the citrus is impor­tant because citrus helps to amplify floral notes in cock­tails the same way it does in perfume.”
Lavender Martini
Lavender Mar­tini

4 sprigs fresh lavender or a couple of table­spoons of dried lavender buds1.5 oz gin (Avi­a­tion and Dry Flyare both made with lavender.Hendrick’s is also an herby choice.)0.5 oz Lillet Blan­cLemon peel1. Muddle the lavender with the gin in a cock­tail shaker.
2. Add the Lillet and stir with ice.
3. Strain into a cock­tail glass. If you don’t want any lavender buds ending up in your cock­tail, double strain it with a fine mesh strainer over the glass before pouring.
4. Gar­nish with a lemon peel and a lavender sprig if you have one.Botan­ical cock­tail trivia: How many trees are in this cock­tail? You may be sur­prised to hear there are four. The Dry Fly con­tains apples, so that’s one. Lillet con­tains qui­nine (a tree bark) and oranges, so that’s three. The lemon peel is four. See what your friends think of that.
contemporary  by Jocelyn H. Chilvers
photo credit: Jocelyn H. Chilvers
Growing the Cock­tailDis­tilling your own gin and Lillet may be a little more ambi­tious than you’d like from a cock­tail garden, but growing the gar­nishes can be easy.Lavender. Though a native of the Mediter­ranean, lavender has found a home in many cli­mates far from its origin. Whether you grow it for its appear­ance, as a garden pol­li­nator attractor or as a gar­nish for food and drink, lavender is one of the eas­iest plants to grow — in the ground or in a con­tainer, always at arm’s reach from the bar. Stewart sug­gests using Eng­lish lavender (Lavan­dula anguis­ti­folia), as its fla­voring is some­what sweeter than other vari­eties.See how to grow lavender
by Amy Stewart
photo credit: Amy Stewart
Though some herbs and edi­bles make more pop­ular alco­holic com­pan­ions, plant to your taste. Stewart, who trans­formed her own yard into a cock­tail garden, shown here, grows plants she would want in her own drinks and advises others to do the same. “If you don’t like cilantro, you’re not going to like it in a cock­tail, so don’t grow it.”It’s also impor­tant to be real­istic about your cli­mate. “Maybe you love pome­gran­ates and want to make your own grena­dine from pome­gran­ates on your own tree, but if you live in a cli­mate where pome­gran­ates don’t grow, try to learn to love the plants that do grow where you live.”Most impor­tant, have fun exper­i­menting with the edi­bles in your yard. “There are no edible plants that couldn’t go into a cock­tail, and I’m sure they all have at one point or another,” Stewart says.
by Amy Stewart
Inter­ested in learning more about plants and cock­tails? Pur­chase your own copy ofThe Drunken Botanist online or visit The Drunken Botanistweb­site for more great info.

How fab­u­lous is that?! This is a topic that we will def­i­nitely revisit as the blooms blossom. Now that you have your drink garden growing, make sure that your bar is up to par. Clayton Gray Home has a fab­u­lous selec­tion of bar carts and the items needed to house those fab­u­lously flowery drinks. Check out some of our past blogs for amazing cock­tail inspi­ra­tion that is bar none.

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