Green Summer Gourmet: The Cocktails

This post is part of a series about eco-friendly entertaining. Read the entire Green Summer Gourmet series here.

When you have group of friends coming over for an afternoon in the sun and you have your grill ready and your salads prepared, you can have some delicious organic wines to serve with the meal, but it's fun to get the party started with some organic cocktails.

People laugh when I say that the only things in my freezer are a bottle of gin and martini glasses, because they think I'm kidding. Well, I'm not and I take my cocktails seriously, so I took up the challenge for Planet Green and started searching out organic alcohol available in Toronto. We have a very bizarre system in Ontario, whereby the Provincial Government controls what alcohol is available to the citizenry and you can only buy it in Provincially run stores. So even though their product listing includes an organic gin, which I've purchased before, the only stores which now carry it are a few hours drive from my home. This is the long way of saying that you might have to search out an organic gin in your city, but it exists. Coming up with organic vodka was a much easier proposition. I didn't have to go any farther than my local store to find two kinds, 360 Vodka and Square One Vodka. 360 Vodka even includes a free CFL bulb with purchase. There are organic whiskeys available throughout the U.K., but I had absolutely no luck finding any here in Ontario.

I did purchase some premium English gin called Bulldog, just so we would have something to make gin cocktails with. My husband likes bourbon and whisky, so I added a bottle of Maker's Mark for him. Once I had the liquor in place, I had to come up with some recipes and some tasters. I used my son and his girlfriend as guinea pigs a couple of weeks ago, but they are in their early 20s and drink beer and wine and didn't quite get the cocktail idea. Clearly, I needed some slightly more experienced people with an appreciation for different alcoholic beverages.

I had a cottage full of company this past weekend and my guests were more than willing to be Planet Green taste testers. There were six adults, which seemed like a reasonable number of people to try out drinks. I came up with recipes for ten drinks and let each guest choose their preferred cocktail based on the ingredients. I added a seventh drink, which had a very odd ingredient list, just to see what it would be like. I based my recipe choices on a number of things. It had to be easy to make, because nobody wants to spend their entire party mixing complicated drinks. It had to be seasonal, something light or fruity. It had to have no more than two types of easily obtained and drinkable alcohol in it, because you don't need an entire bottle of some weird ingredient sitting unused in your liquor cupboard for the next ten years.

Then I got to mixing the drinks. I served them all in identical wine glasses, without rimming or adding garnish. We tried each drink and discussed them before moving on to the next. I wrote down everyone's impressions and then we chose drinks that worked in different categories.

The Best Overall Drink
Five of the six of us chose the Cajun Martini as the best overall drink. The sixth person conceded that she would have chosen it as well if she liked martinis. And of course, I had just made my own pickled green beans, so how could it lose?

1 1/2 oz organic vodka
Dash Tabasco
1 pickled green bean

1. Pour the vodka chilled from the freezer into a chilled Martini glass.


2. Add Tabasco and garnish with the bean.

The Best Drink for a Girl's Party
We agreed that the Lemon Drop cocktail was a very summery drink, perfect for a hot afternoon. Testers thought that some fresh mint would be a refreshing addition, or you could make it into a longer drink with some tonic water or soda water.

1. In a cocktail shaker filled with ice, add 1 1/2 oz organic vodka, the juice of 1/4 fresh lemon and 1 to 2 teaspoons sugar.


2. Shake until sugar is dissolved.


3. Rim a Martini glass with fresh lemon and sugar, and add drink mixture.


4. Garnish with a lemon twist.

The Best Drink for a Canada Day Party
Hands down, everybody liked the Maple Leaf cocktail best for a celebration kind of garden party. Note to Americans: Go ahead and serve it on Labor Day. It has a pretty pink colour, but isn't an overly sweet drink. We thought some blueberries floating it would be a nice addition.

Juice of ¼ fresh lemon
1/8 cup fresh or frozen cranberries
1 tsp superfine sugar
1½ oz organic vodka
1 to 2 tsp maple syrup (to taste)
Garnish: frozen cranberry

1. In a cocktail shaker, add the juice of ¼ fresh lemon, superfine sugar and fresh or frozen cranberries. Muddle or mash thoroughly. Fill the shaker with ice and add vodka and maple syrup (to taste). Shake sharply and strain into a Martini glass. Garnish with a frozen cranberry.

The Best Drink for After Dinner
The Bourbon Sidecar was the winner in this category. It was the most complex tasting of the drinks served and definitely suited to some sublime after dinner conversation.

1. In a cocktail shaker filled with ice, add 1 1/4 oz bourbon, 1/2 oz Triple sec and the juice of 1/2 fresh lime.


2. Shake until chilled and strain into a Martini glass.


3. Garnish with a lime wedge.

The Best Drink to Let Your Guests Know It's Time to Go Home
Forget taking out a garbage bag and clearing up, the Yin Yang Martini will have everyone calling for a taxi and heading out the door. Tasters likened the appearance and aroma to the spring run-off from the cottage outhouse. Not for the faint of heart or delicate of stomach.

1. In a cocktail shaker filled with ice, add 1 oz organic gin, ½ oz. lemon juice, ½ oz. simple syrup, and ¼ tsp. balsamic vinegar. Stir until icy cold and strain into a martini glass. Garnish with a rosemary sprig.

Once we had finished with the recipe testing, we decided to have a head-to-head match with the two organic vodkas. There is no question that the 360 Vodka was superior to regular vodka, but all six of us found the Square One Vodka smoother and with a better taste when taken straight. Our group consisted of experts in art and design and they all loved the simple Square One bottle. My 20 year old daughter however, pronounced it "boring" and liked the busier 360 Vodka appearance and fitted cap.

A Caveat
These drinks are strong. You certainly know you are drinking straight alcohol when you have the Cajun Martini or the Bourbon Sidecar, but drinks like Lemon Drop and the Maple Leaf cocktail sneak up on you because they are fruity tasting and the alcohol isn't so apparent. Don't wait too long to switch over to those organic wines, and always have plenty of non-alcoholic drinks available for your guests.

All drink recipes from Food and Drink website

More Green Summer Gourmet
Green Summer Gourmet: The Season's Best Grilling Recipes
Green Summer Gourmet: The Salads
Green Summer Gourmet: 6 Best Summer Wines

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