Rachel Marwedel
Website Manager
Each Monday, I gather my roommates and taste-test two mocktails. Here’s how this week’s went:
Wimbledon Winner
More like a Wimbledon… loser (Ok, that was kind of lame)
Dozen fresh strawberries, rinsed and hulled
Enough light cream to cover the strawberries
1 tbsp fine sugar
Pinch of powdered ginger
Club Soda
Ice cubes
Place the strawberries, cream, sugar, and ginger in a blender and blend until smooth. Pour the blend into a jug and add club soda to almost fill the jug, and a generous helping of ice cubes. Stir well before serving.
This recipe comes from Mocktails by David Biggs. I started by cutting up my strawberries so they’d blend easier, and adding some leftover cream I had from making chocolate ganache last week. Then in went the sugar (I just used what I had on hand) and ginger. Blend, add some club soda and ice cubes, then a slice of strawberry to garnish.
“It tastes like foaming hand soap. The strawberry kind.” With that encouraging review from one of my taste-testers, I had a sip as well. Friends, enemies, and all who read this – do not, I repeat, do not suffer through the experience of having this drink in your mouth. Though maybe you like the texture of foaming hand soap. If that’s the case, I hope I never meet you.
Rating: 1/3
Ruining perfectly good orange juice
1 part canned pineapple juice
1 part fresh orange juice
½ part coconut cream
1 bar measure of sugar syrup (about an egg cup)
Ice cubes
(Optional) Thin slice of pineapple and maraschino cherry
Cairns Cooler
Place about six ice cubes in a cocktail shaker. Add the pineapple and orange juices, coconut cream, and sugar syrup, and shake well. Strain into a highball glass and garnish with a slice of pineapple, if available, and a cherry on a toothpick.
This recipe also comes from Mocktails by David Biggs. I unfortunately had to buy almost a half-gallon of pineapple juice for this recipe – pro tip, Walmart does not stock pineapple juice in small quantities. I skipped using a shaker (I forgot I had one) and mixed the juices and cream together, as well as a tbsp of simple syrup. I have no idea what a ‘1 bar measure’ or an ‘egg cup’ is, and I’m too tired to care. After a bit of mixing, I added my ice cubes and called it a day.
If a drink could suffer imposter syndrome, Cairns Cooler would have it. It wasn’t sweet enough to be in Shirley Temple territory, nor balanced enough to be a pina colada. It simply wasn’t good enough to be a proper drink. If you find yourself relating to this drink, may I suggest therapy? And perhaps a better mocktail than this?
Rating: 1.5/3
