The pumpkin craze leaves me befuddled. I don’t understand the hype. I like pumpkin, though I‘ve never tasted a PSL. I’ve seen pumpkin flavored everything, including cereal – gross. Call me the poster child for anti-fad. If something starts trending in pop culture, I run in the opposite direction. Quickly.

I like pumpkins. I LOVE pumpkin seeds. I just haven’t jumped on the all-things pumpkin bandwagon. Pumpkin used to signal cooler temps and fall; but with Pumpkin flavors hitting the market in August – I don’t understand. So please stop with the pumpkin flavored everything!

With this as my backdrop, I find myself creating a pumpkin cocktail because 1) to see if I could – I can and 2) I have a kid that loves the look of pumpkins. My yard looks like a pumpkin patch. I have plenty of pumpkins.

As I started thinking about what to do with all this pumpkin meat, I considered pumpkin simple syrup and pumpkin bitters. Uh, hard no on the bitters from scratch. Been there. Done that. Twice!

I landed on a pumpkin shrub. It was about this time last year that I discovered shrubs, and with plenty of apple cider vinegar in my pantry and sugar, I had all the ingredients.

The Great Pumpkin is subtle but well balanced. If you want to amp up the pumpkin flavor, add in some pumpkin pie spice; but really you don’t need it.  This cocktail may just convert me to pumpkin.

Hat tip to Charlie Brown, we love the Great Pumpkin!

Recipe

Cheers,

~Kimberly Elise

#2BrownGirls
#MelaninTwist
#BlackGirlMagic

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