This is a very interesting project coming from me, considering I don’t drink alcohol. And yes, you can make cocktails without alcohol, and I’m sure there are great ones, but to me, that seems like just mixing juices and that is not that fun. This idea came from my girlfriend because she wanted to be the cool girl on the beach with a cocktail in her hand so I had to make that happen.
Since we were in Greece, the cocktail obviously had to be from local ingredients, so that means – Ouzo. Considering I don’t know anything about cocktails, I googled “Ouzo cocktails” and looked at what seemed fun, what didn’t need a whole bunch of complex and expensive ingredients, and what my girlfriend would like. We narrowed down the choices to 5 cocktails and decided to make a final choice based on what we find in the shops. But the best two candidates were Ouzo lemonade and Ouzo tonic. In the end, the deciding factor was that we couldn’t find a small cheap bottle of Limoncello for the Ouzo tonic.
I found some cheap Ouzo, lemons, water, and a small packet of honey (the kind you get in the hotels) at the supermarket. I was wondering where I would find mint leaves, but they ended up finding me. The day I was looking for ingredients, we sat in a coffee shop and I ordered an ice tea. And can you guess what came in it? That’s right, mint leaves. So I just took them out, packed them in a bag, and saved them for the next day.
Since we wanted this to be a beach cocktail, it was a bit tricky to transport everything and have it stay cool. Luckily, we were prepared and had a refrigerating bag. Unfortunately, that still wasn’t enough for the ice cubes we prepared to survive. But the rest of the ingredients were cold.
I usually end these by telling my impressions of the project, but since I hadn’t drunk this, I’ll leave the final review to my girlfriend:
5/7 (4.8/5 if I’m being serious)
I don’t usually dring ouzo so this cocktail was an interesting and fun new experience – refreshing, citrusy and with a faint taste of licorice, and I quickly found myself wishing I had another when the noon heat kicked in. The only thing I changed was the sweetness: I added a bit more honey and brown sugar to bring this cocktail closer to an almost candy-like level, the way I prefer it.
Andjelka Sredojevic
Boring stuff
Ouzo Lemonade is a very simple cocktail, all you need are 60ml of Ouzo, 45ml of Lemon Juice, 1 Tsp Honey, Water, Mint Leaves, and Lemon. First, you mix Ouzo and lemon juice and then muddle the mint leaves in the mix. Yes, I learned what muddling means in the cocktail world. It is basically mashing out the oils and the essence out of the fresh ingredients. After that, you add a teaspoon of honey and stir until it dissolves, and then fill up the rest of the glass with water, up to your taste. Just like any lemonade, if you want it stronger, you add less water and if you want it weaker – more water. In the end, I just added a slice of lemon and some sugar to the rim of the glass.
Since this was supposed to be a beach cocktail, I prepared a part of it at the hotel and did the final assembly at the beach. For the glass, we brought an empty Ajvar jar with us because it looks hipster and cool.
