Add some home-grown flair to your summer drinks with this selection of fruits and herbs, ready to grow now!
Whether you are sipping on a gin and tonic, or shaking up a mocktail, summer will be the perfect time to relax in the garden with a drink of your choice. So why not enhance your favourite drinks with fresh ingredients from your own garden, saving some money and adding an extra flair to your summer drink?
Discussing the benefits of using homegrown herbs and fruit for your cocktail, Matt Mahatme, co-founder of Lixir Drinks explains: “Using ingredients fresh from your garden like tomatoes for your Bloody Mary, or fresh mint for your Mojitos, is a great way to add your own twist to the drinks you enjoy.
“All you need to grow herbs and plants for your drinks is a sunny location, a few pots or a large container, and some seedlings to plant in your garden.”
To get started with your summer cocktail garden, try your hand at the following plants:
- ROSEMARY: If you are growing rosemary for the first time in your garden, you want to look for an area which is well-drained and sunny to ensure this herb stays healthy. You will need to change the pot every year if you grow your rosemary in a pot, so make the decision as to where you plant your rosemary accordingly. You can propagate rosemary from cuttings quite easily, grow from seed or even nurture supermarket-grown rosemary from the veg section. Rosemary is typically added to gin as a fragrant botanical, but it is also great to grow for savoury dishes such as lamb. Pollinating insects love it.
- TOMATOES: For those who enjoy a Bloody Mary, tomatoes are perfect to grow in your vegetable garden to give your cocktail a personal touch. Medium-sized tomatoes can be turned into tomato juice for refreshing non alcoholic drink or as a cocktail, and are usually ready to harvest from 10-12 weeks from sowing. If you are planting your tomatoes into the ground, you should dig plenty of garden compost before planting, as tomatoes thrive the most in rich, free-draining but moisture-retentive soil.
- MINT: As the most common ingredient used in cocktails, mint is happy to grow in both full sun and partial shade. If you are growing mint in your garden, it is important to water it regularly, especially in a heatwave when the plant is at risk of drying out. It might be best to confine it to a pot as it spreads rapidly! You can grow from seed (again supermarket plants from the veg section, if nurtured will grow on); buy one of the many varieties from a good nursery; or, if you put stalks in water, they will grow roots. If you are looking to utilise mint in your drinks, you could try a mint Mojito, Old Cuban or Old Fashioned.
- STRAWBERRIES: For ease of picking, these are ideally grown in pots or hanging baskets. Strawberries are a plant which will comeback each year. Strawberries can be used for juices, infusions, liqueurs, purees and syrups, where the fresh berries muddle well, but frozen strawberries are also popular in strawberry-based cocktails. Common strawberry cocktails to try are the strawberry Daiquiri, Mojito, or strawberry Gin and Tonic.
- LAVENDER: Not only does lavender add a fragrant scent to a garden and attract bees, but it also infuses light and floral flavours into drinks. If you are growing lavender in your garden, you have the option to infuse it into vodka or gin, use it as a garnish in a cocktail, or transform it into lavender syrup. It can also be baked in cakes. Lavender prefers full sun, and they require fast-draining soil. If you place a lavender plant in shady and damp conditions, it will not survive long so it is imperative that you accommodate the plant with poor and dry soil.
Picture caption: Fresh strawberries and mint are perfect for a Mojito
This article extract was taken from the March 2024 edition of The Country Smallholder.
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