The cherry blossoms are starting to poke their little faces out!
Easily, without a doubt, cherry blossom season is one of the most beautiful times of year in Greater Victoria.
We love them, we wait for them, we snap photos of them and their jaw-dropping beauty until they shed their petals and cover your car in their signature pink.
Lately some of our favourite spring forbearers have started to show a renewed life around town and to celebrate I thought I’d do a bit of a riff on a classic cocktail — the gimlet.
This gimlet, though, will be lush, pink, sweet and floral to fully encapsulate the essence of the cherry blossom trees we love so much.
I chose a pink gin for this one to give our gimlet the colour of a cherry blossom tree, a maraschino cherry for some sweetness and some rose water instead of lime juice along with rose petals for a bit of florality.
Here it is! This is how you can make a Cherry Blossom Gimlet:
Ingredients:
- 2 oz – Gordon’s Premium Pink gin (only around $24 at BCL)
- ¾ oz – simple syrup (hot water and sugar at a 1:1 ratio)
- ¾ oz – rose water (take water, add rose petals — you got rose water)
- Garnish – maraschino cherry
- Garnish – rose petals
Process:
- Add gin, rose water and simple syrup to a cocktail shaker
- Add ice (around 4-6 cubes) and shake as hard as you can while still looking normal for about 30 seconds
- Strain into the best coup glass you can get your hands on (the shallow ones with a short stem). It’s always best if you have the foresight to chill the coup glass in the freezer before making the cocktail
- Add a maraschino cherry (on a spear or plunk it right in) and float a couple dries rose petals on top
That’s that! A Victorian Cherry Blossom Gimlet!
Give it a try and let me know in the comments what you think of this and/or what you’d like to see next in Curt’s Cocktail Corner.
And as always, be sure to drink responsibly and never drink and drive!
