Light Strawberry Mojito

It's Saturday night, it's sunny, and I have some fresh strawberries calling my name from the fridge. Time for a fruity cocktail concoction!

I love me a mojito, but they typically have a ton of sugar (which is why they taste so damn good). But they don't have to be super sweet to taste great.

Instead of using white sugar or brown sugar, I use Agave nectar, or you could use Truvia, which comes from the stevia plant and has no calories. We actually grew Stevia last summer, and I used a dehydrator to dry the leaves for use in drinks and recipes like this. Use it sparingly though, because teaspoon for teaspoon, its much sweeter than sugar, and it has an aftertaste that takes some getting used to.

Here's the strawberry mojito recipe I'm drinking as I type this (sorry for any mispellings, given the drink).

Ingredients:

One good shot of Clear Rum

Two ounces of club soda

Three fresh strawberries

Four-five mint leaves

Two lime wedges

One tsp. Agave nectar or other natural sweetner (feel free to add more to taste)

Muddle the strawberries, mint and sweetner together either directly in your cocktail glass using a wooden spoon, or using a mortar and pestle, and I have.

If you like some extra sweetness, rim your glass with sugar. To make the sugar stick to the rim, run a lime over the edge, then dip the glass into a saucer that has sugar in it. The lime with make the sugar stick.

Now, put the muddled ingredients into the glass along with a lot of ice, and pour in the rum. Squeeze the lime wedges over the drink, stir it up a bit, and garnish with a strawberry and a mint leaf.



Bottoms up. Enjoy your light Strawberry Mojito!

Sake to me

I love the spicy flavor of ginger and it's medicinal properties, so this Ginger Rum and Sake cocktail has become one of my favorite pre-dinner drinks.

I originally found a recipe for a Ginger Cocktail in the Williams-Sonoma Bride & Groom Entertaining Cookbook a few months ago, but I swap out the vodka in the recipe for Rum, use ginger-infused simple syrup instead of plain simple syrup, and sometimes I add club soda for refreshing fizz.

To start you need to whip up some ginger simple syrup, which is, well, simple.

Peel a one-inch section of ginger and slice it. Put 1/2 cup of sugar into a sauce pan with 1 cup of water and the ginger slices. Heat the mixture until the sugar dissolves, about ten minutes. Let it cool a bit then pour it into a jar and store in the refrigerator.

Here's what you need to make the cocktail:

A knob of fresh ginger

A few fresh mint leaves, torn

1 shot of good quality clear rum

1/2 shot of Sake

Wedge of lime

1/2 tsp Ginger simple syrup (or more if you like sweet drinks)

Now, run your favorite martini glass under cold water and put it in the freezer. Then fill a cocktail shaker with ice.

Combine the ingredients in the shaker and shake it for a good 20 seconds to get it nice and cold.

Strain it into the chilled martini glass, squeeze the lime into it and garnish however you like.

Enjoy!