Garden Party

Broadly speaking, there are three things in my liquor cabinet: a very large bottle of neglected gin, a collection of rums from various sugar-producing parts of the world, and lots of vodka.  It's this last that I attempted to push onto my friends at today's little garden party.

I find that almost any vodka can taste good when mixed with Crystal Light lemonade.  Stoli Vanil.  Yes.  Stoli Strasberi (or some such ridiculously pretentious spelling of 'strawberry').  Yes.  Somebody's raspberry or other.  Yes.  Stoli Citron, sure.  Finlandia lime.  Yup.

As you might have surmised by now, almost any vodka goes well with Crystal Light.  But not the Finlandia mango.  For some odd reason, Finlandia mango with lemonade is absolutely disgusting, even after a fair bit of other stuff.  It tastes like a dentist's office mixed with feet.

Besides vodka, though, there's Pimm's.  Pimm's is absolutely the cat's ass.  (That's 'just totally super' for you Americans).  I may or may not have provided a recipe for Pimms Lemonade yet.  If not, please follow along in your hymnals.

Pimm's Lemonade
1 70cl btl Pimm's #1
3x 1L bottles of Sprite/7Up
1/2 cucumber
15 large strawberries
1 orange
1 apple
1 lemon
1 lime
a whole lot of mint

Cut up the fruit in small pieces.  In a large container, pour the Pimms over the fruit.  Let soak for as long as possible.  To serve, pour 1/3 of a cup of Pimms and fruit over ice, then add 2/3 cup of lemonade (Sprit/7Up in the US).  Stick in a big piece of mint and some cucumber and you're golden.

I strongly recommend this fantastic drink.  It's Tops!

Hope you all enjoy your own garden parties etc.

Yours

Paul