It was a hot and steamy August night and we had a few friends over for dinner.
And drinks.
Mostly, when we gather, we stick to wine, on this night a couple of lovely rosés from one of our fave Santa Inez valley wineries, but first, I had this cocktail recipe I had been aching to try out…
A cherry and lemon simple syrup splashed over ice with dark rum and seltzer.
How was it?
YUM.
Refreshing, too.
INGREDIENTS
•2 cups pitted cherries
•1 cup lemon juice
•3/4 cup water
•3/4 cup sugar
•Dark rum
•Seltzer water
Add the cherries to the lemon juice, water, and sugar in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat.
Once the mixture has begun simmering, run your immersion blender through it to finely chop the cherries.
Note: the original recipe, from the nice folk at sweetpaulmag.com, called for running the cherries and lemon juice through your blender before adding to the water and sugar, but I had a lot going on that day, and figured one less container to clean was a good thing, so used my immersion blender. The final mixture was mebbe a bit pulpier than it would’ve been otherwise, but was, I think, no less tasty.
However you’ve managed to blend your cherries, let the mixture in the pan simmer for 15 minutes, until reduced and syrup-y.
Remove from the heat and allow to cool before transferring to a jar and stashing in the fridge until needed – I ended up with about 20 ounces of cherry-lemon concentrate – enough for ten cocktails.
When ready to serve, pour equal amounts of the cherry-lemon syrup and your dark rum of choice – we are kinda lovin’ Plantation Pineapple Rum right now – over ice in a glass, then top over with seltzer or soda water – I chose to keep the cherry theme going and used black cherry seltzer.
Light and wicked refreshing.