Summer Breeze

I’ve been on vacation for a week – I’ve disconnected from work and reconnected with friends, family and myself. The young prince has connected with his beach friends and they’ve picked up right were they left of last summer.

I am a beach girl. I literally spend 8+ hours on a beach. Sunup to sundown, I’m here. With a lot of lobster rolls thrown in for sustenance. Oh and bourbon. Can’t forget the bourbon!

I’m with family that doesn’t drink bourbon neat, so I needed to create a cocktail or two. I packed cherries and bitters in my suitcase, no use buying those on the island. My plan was to make Old Fashioneds all week. But after sitting on the beach, letting the restorative waters do their thing, creativity hit and I wanted to make something to remind me of the water. I was also jamming to the Isley Brothers, hence the name and the guitar riff added additional inspiration. So I riffed on the Old Fashioned and added blue curacao.

Now the thing about blue curacao for me is that I expect it to taste one way and it completely flips because it doesn’t. I expect sweet, like blue raspberry sweet. But no, this is citrusy, and always causes me to stop and figure out what in the world. I know this and yet it always happens.

Anyhoots back to my Summer Breeze. I started with a traditional Old Fashioned but two things were a miss – I used subpar cherries. Tip: stick with the expensive, known cherries, they are a game changer. The second thing is the bitters were too much. I used Angostura Bitters, which I like but they didn’t work with the blue curacao. It was drinkable but only because I like bourbon. Alas, I was with bourbon lightweights, so I knew I needed to tinker. Eliminating the bitters and using ginger ale as my sweetener along with a rub of orange peel along the rim was – delightful.

‘Summer breeze makes me feel fine
Blowing through the jasmine in my mind.’

Cheers,  

~Kimberly Elise  
#2BrownGirls 
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