Wild Strawberry Lime Cocktail
Summer is great for refreshing drinks. I’m sure it’s great for other things, but me, I think of ways to cool off when it’s hot. That tends to involve fruit, citrus, ice and some sort of lighter booze (this is a site about cocktails, what else did you think I’d say?). With that in mind, let’s all gather ’round and have a Wild Strawberry Lime Cocktail!
There’s something about wild. It’s fresh. It’s carefree. It’s everything that prepackaged, homogenized and sterilized isn’t. Wild is summer.
That’s only 90% made up, but it’s fun to imagine.
Anyway, I was looking for a new drink to celebrate the summer and the strawberry moon (full moon on the first day of summer, it’s totally a thing, look it up). I knew that I needed strawberries, for obvious reasons. Luckily, our friends over at Bepi Tosolini sent of some of their fine Fragola liqueur, so I knew we were set. If you’re unfamiliar, it’s a spirit infused with wild Italian strawberries — and yes, it’s as strawberry luscious as you’re imagining.
After drinking it straight, I knew I wanted to add some citrus, that’s where the lime joins the cocktail. Wild Italian strawberries (I’m sure there’s probably a better summer phrase out there, but that’s pretty high on the list) are sweet, so we needed to cut that sweetness.
With our lime and strawberry combination, I was happy, but not fully satisfied with where the flavor was. Our missing component? Something to bind everything together with a nice herbaceous flavor. Why hello cilantro, you were pretty damn good in Waking the Dead, I know you’ll fit right in here.
If you think it sounds odd, don’t worry, it isn’t. Strawberries and cilantro are best buddies — and unless you’ve never had Mexican food before, you know that cilantro and lime work famously in tandem.
Our final touch was deciding what supporting booze would go with this. My first thought was a nice silver tequila, but I knew that’s just what you’d be expecting me to do, so I decided against that. However, this will totally work with silver tequila (you bet I tried one), but venture out my friend.
Our booze to compliment? Pisco! Clear, bright, complementing the richness of wild Italian strawberries and going so naturally with lime juice, it was a very good choice indeed.
The Peruvians really were onto something when they figured out pisco. Now, with all of our components combined, let’s get down with the Wild Strawberry Lime Cocktail!
- 3 oz. pisco
- 1 oz. lime juice
- 1 oz. strawberry liqueur
- Cilantro
- Lime round
- Glass type: Collins
- Add your strawberry liqueur (with adorable baby strawberries) and handful of cilantro to your cocktail glass.
- Muddle.
- Gotta get those essential oils out, kick up the flavor.
- Add pisco, lime juice and ice to your muddled strawberry and cilantro.
- Shake.
- Finish, put fresh ice in your Collins glass.
- Double strain your cocktail into your glass.
- Garnish with a lime round.
- Add a straw.
- That's how we do that.