In case you hadn’t heard, Nole celebrated a birthday this week! So here’s a drink that I made just for her on her birthday: the Summer Rose. The Summer Rose was a big hit with Nole, who has some very specific drink tastes. Like some of her other favorites, the Summer Rose is light and sweet, just a bit tart from the citrus but airily floral from the gin and lavender simple syrup (which you can get from folks like Royal Rose or make at home, a project we plan to tackle soon). But also fruity and delightfully pink from the blueberries. – Andrew

Illustration by Tuesday Bassen for Oh So Beautiful Paper

The Summer Rose

2 oz Dry Gin
1 oz Lemon Juice
1 oz Lavender Simple Syrup
Handful of Fresh Blueberries

Muddle the blueberries in the bottom of a shaker, then fill with ice.  Add the gin, lemon juice, and simple syrup.  Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.  Enjoy!

 

One of the many fun aspects of cocktails is their changeability.  Switch out one ingredient for another, sometimes even one very similar, and you might have an entirely different drink on your hands.  Just take a look at the vast family of Sours – drinks as different as the Sidecar, the Margarita, or the Jack Rose are all just slight variations on a common theme.

So when Nole asked me to fix her a drink one night, I took the (slightly lazy) route of modifying one of our previous drinks, the Lavender Ghost, and came up with the entirely different (but also very akin) Summer Rose.

 

Perfect to accompany dinner on one of these last nights of summer.