Minty Blues

Ingredients:

2oz Gin

.5oz Maraschino

.5oz St. Germain

1 brspn Creme Yvette

4 Mint Leaves

7 Blueberries

Instructions:
Add 5 blueberries and 3 mint leaves to a chilled mixing glass. Top with maraschino. Muddle the blueberries and mint in the maraschino. Then add the gin, St. Germain and Creme Yvette. Add ice and stir until well chilled. Double strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with the remaining mint leaf and 2 blueberries.
Notes:
Mint and berry dominate the nose. Refreshing, light and smooth, semisweet in flavor. Think Aviation meets blueberry and mint dessert. The maraschino keeps this one silky smooth while adding sweetness, which is complemented by the St. Germain and berry notes in the Creme Yvette. The gin tones down the sweetness brought by the other ingredients.

Minty Blues 2

History:

Check out Gentian Dream to see my entry and be sure to look at all the other great submissions in the full wrap up here.

Minty Blues came about as a side project of sorts while trying to create a vegetal cocktail for the recent Mixology Monday. I started trying to make a carrot cake type cocktail (which may get posted at some point, we’ll see), and then switched to the “healthier” dessert idea of berries and mint. I spent some time trying to decide how the berry and mint concept could translate into a cocktail, without turning into something too heavy.

Typically muddled berries and the like would get a good shake to better emulsify, but I wanted to keep this one more crisp and maintain the smoothness of the drink by stirring it. Maraschino goes great on berries and in desserts and was a no brainer. Creme Yvette seemed like a nice accent given it’s berry and violet notes. The Yvette also helps provide more berry flavor, especially since I would be stirring this drink. St. Germain rounds out the sweet ingredients with more floral based flavor, this time from elderflowers.

Minty Blues 3

As anyone who has tried the ingredients listed so far could tell you, this is a recipe for sweetness. The addition of gin really helps take the sweetness down, while adding botanical accents along the way. The result is the recipe above, which gives you a taste of blueberries and mint, a bit of sweetness, but ultimately a smooth and light sipper, that goes great with beautiful weather.