Cocktails & Mocktails Class

Crafting Healthy and Flavorful Cocktails

Herbs are very good for you! They're anti-inflammatory and antioxidant. And so if we can get those into our drinks as well, that's ideal! A lot of ways that people take herbs in is through infusions, which are mixed with water or some sort of medium glycerin, even your like ACB, your apple cider vinegar, different vinegars mixed with herbs, alcohols to make tinctures. If you're alcohol-free, these are all great ways to get more herbs into your body system. 

What's the basic concept of a cocktail? And how do we then bring herbs into that? We'll make it really easy for you! We'll first talk about simple sugar. The recipe is down below. But you don't even have to do that. So what you want to do is grab the herbs that you want to go with your drink and muddle, softly crushing up, the herbs because you can release all of those essential oils! It's not only where the flavor is, but also where a lot of the healing benefits are. 

With cocktails, what you're doing is you're thinking, what is the alcohol that I'm using? So in a typical drink, you use around two ounces of alcohol, some people might do more, and then you're looking at your sweet and your sour. And so when you think of your sour, you're thinking of lemons and limes. And then you've got your sweets and that's where you're thinking about things like your infusions, simple syrups, or it could be blueberries, oranges. So it's squeezing the orange juice, muddling the berries. A very simple combination. That's what we're playing with when it comes to creating really unique cocktails and mocktails. 

Simple syrups are actually really simple and can be full of variety. They really elevate your drink and people are always so impressed too. It's as simple as you use 50% water, 50% sugar. Try using raw sugar! You bring the combo to a boil until the sugar is completely dissolved over your stovetop, and then let it cool a little bit. Then you add the muddled herbs you want to infuse it with. Such as mint leaves, lavender, basil, or rosemary. You can use florals! After it's cooled off, just pour the liquid into a Mason jar and refrigerate it. And then after a few days, strain out your herbs. Try experimenting with different combos to find what you like!

The lemon blueberry basil spritzer is a delicious mocktail! The recipe card is below. Basically, you're going to fill your glass with sparkling water and squeeze a lemon into it. In a separate bowl, muddle, gently crush, your blueberries and basil together. It's releasing herbs oil and blueberry juice! Then you'll pour that into your sparkling water glass and mix it all together. Very simple! 

Watch the video below for all the details!