Thursday, October 7, 2010

Thirsty Thursday - My First Attempt at "Mocktails"

As you can tell, this October, Laura and I are featuring some of our favorite drink concoctions on Thursdays. The past few weeks I have been a bit mystified by Kath's "mocktails." The most unusual combo has been basil and selzter. When it comes to drinks I am definitely more of a sweets kind of gal. If I am out drinking, though, I have to be a bit more aware of my love for sweet drinks. They are a bit easier on the tastebuds and can be pretty easy to throwback without realizing how much you are drinking. Note to readers: keep track, otherwise you will end up hugging the porcelain throne!

I have an awesome black mail pick of my husband on one of those nights, but..... I was told I was not allowed to put it on the internet :(


While trying to find a good pic of Rusty, post drinking, I found this instead. Here we both are on New Year's....on our way to regretting our drink choices :) (but it sure was fun)

But I digress! Mocktails, love 'em or hate 'em, I had to give one a try.


I know Kath usually uses selzter and then adds some fruit and maybe flavoring. For inspiration, I decided to immitate one of my favorite dinnertime cocktails at home, Flavored water and Malibu Rum....Yum Yum!




Instead I used these:




In order to make my first mocktail EXTRA special, I made fancy ice cubes. I started with 2 types of fruit, limes and oranges. For each batch I zested the fruit, removed the skin and processed the "meat" and zest.





I added a bit of seltzer to the mix, then spooned it into an ice cube tray. I made 16 cubes, but probably could have made more if I had another tray.



After the cubes of color were frozen, I plopped a few in a glass with plain seltzer and coconut extract.


A big swig and .....YUCK! The coconut extract did not mix well with the seltzer. It smelled very cheap and fake. The ice cubes provided great color but no flavor. Basically I had bright, chilled coconut fizzy water....and I do NOT love coconut water.



Epic failure!


But wait! I still have some preflavored/sweetened water in the fridge! A splash of coconut, 3 cubes de color and some mandarin orange flavored Walmart water and VOILA! A yummy still tastes like cocktail "mocktail."


At least my second try was somewhat of a success. The funny thing about all of this is that I didn't really need for it to be a "mocktail." I am very content having a small glass of cheap, fizzy, calorie free water with dinner. I usually only add rum if it has been "one of those days" and in that case, will probably still add rum.


Whether you need a "mocktail" or a cocktail, you now know a fun color combo for flavored ice cubes (and know better than to mix coconut extract with seltzer).

In honor of my "mocktail" tonight I leave you with a fun video that we posted on National Coconut Day.

5 comments:

  1. I am obsessed with fizzy water.

    OBSESSED.

    I liked this post but all I could think of was how sad I was not to have a Mandarin Orange fizzy from Wal-Mart waiting for me when I get home.

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  2. Really cute picture of you two! But I agree...I'm not a big cocktail or mocktail girl. Just give me some sparkling water with a squeeze of lemon, and I'm all set. But thank you for sharing your experiments...I certainly wouldn't turn one down!

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  3. Mm, I love mocktails! What you made looks really good, I think I'm going to try it out!

    -Raych
    http://losingwithraych.blogspot.com

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  4. Love those ice cubes! Makes the drinks so *fancy*!

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  5. Do you use Zico coconut water?

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