Blackberry Sage Spritzers

Last week was just one of those weeks.  I was juggling a ton of stuff.  Except I can’t actually juggle, so really I was just throwing stuff in the air and waiting for it to come back and hit me in the face. 

When the weekend arrived, my to-do list had been reduced to one simple instruction: Sort your shit out.  Working out what that entailed was the cause of some emotional stress, to which my body automatically responds by ingesting ice-cream and gin, separately and generously.  Hashtag Science.  Hashtag notreally.

That’s how a second item came to be added to the list:  Make ice-cream and cocktails.  Immediately, the sorting of my shit (whatever that even meant…) didn’t seem so important after all.

Sage Syrup

(make this first)

What you’ll need:

1 cup water

1 cup sugar

Small handful of fresh sage

Here’s how:

Combine all three ingredients in a pan over medium heat, allowing the sugar to dissolve. Remove from the heat,  remove the sage, cover and allow to cool completely. Store in an airtight jar/ bottle in the fridge.

 

Blackberry Sage Spritzer

What you’ll need:

Fresh blackberries

Sage syrup

Good quality gin (I used Bombay Sapphire)

Sparkling water

Ice

Here’s how:

Half fill a glass with ice.  In a shaker, muddle a handful of blackberries.  Add equal quantities of gin and sage syrup. Add a few cubes of ice and shake well. Strain into the glass and top with soda water. Garnish with a fresh blackberry or two and serve immediately.

Recipe by Joylicious via Nao Me Mandes Flores.  Mine looks a little different since I used more blackberries and make it a shorter (read: more alcoholic) cocktail.

On some rare, sweet occasions in this life, things just fall into place while you lie slothfully on the beach, becoming further engrossed in your book and sipping on Blackberry Sage Spritzers.  Cheers to those times!