Famed French impressionist artist, Henri Matisse, once said:

“There are always flowers for those who want to see them.”

I say, why not drink them too!  What can be better than a bouquet of roses for Valentines Day? How about a floral craft cocktail.  Alcohol, strawberries, and flowers in a drinkable pink concoction, umm, yes please!

Recommended movie pairing – the 1988 Tom Cruise classic, Cocktails and Dreams.

The Inspiration:  I visited Culver City in Los Angeles, home of my mid 20’s stomping ground.  The restaurant landscape of the small downtown strip in Culver City changes every time I visit.  I heard great things about Public School 310, which opened up in place of Fraiche.  A girl friend and I thoroughly enjoyed their strawberry and St. Germain cocktail.  St. Germain is a French liqueur from elderflowers.  It has a lovely, mild, sweet, and floral aroma.  It’s also fantastic with vodka, grapefruit juice, and soda.

However, being budget minded, I wanted to find a floral substitute for St. Germain liquor.  The solution – rose-water!  St. Germain costs about $30 – $37 for a 750 ml bottle.  I bought some rose-water at a local market for $2.00.   If you buy rose-water, make sure it is the kind used for cooking, as opposed to cosmetic applications like skin care.

Recipe (serves 10):

• 2 packages of frozen strawberries, thawed
• 6 oz. rose-water
• Juice from 4 lemons, seeds removed
• 1 750ml bottle of plain vodka
• 1 2 litter bottle of clear soda or 1 bottle of Prossecco if you want to get all fancy with it
• optional: Rose Crystals or plain granulated sugar to rim the glass
• optional: 10 edible flowers for garnish, here I used pansies

Equipment:

• lemon juicer
• cocktail shaker
• blender
• strainer
• cocktail glass
• small plate
• shot glass

Instructions:

Thaw strawberries until they’re mushy but still cold.  I used frozen strawberries to chill the cocktail without ice.  Liquify strawberries in blender.

Add lemon juice and rose-water to strawberries in the blender and blend again.

Rim the cocktail glass with lemon juice or water.  Pour rose crystals or plain sugar onto a small plate.  Rim glass with sugar.

Strain wet mixture and pour in glass, filling about 1/5 – 1/3 of the glass.  Add 1-2 shots of vodka.  Fill the rest of the glass up with clear soda or Prossecco.  Garnish with flower. Viola!

Optional:

Rose Crystals are made from rose essence crystalized with sugar.  I received this sample bottle from a purchase of edible flowers.  This website has the cheapest prices I’ve seen for edible flowers.  They also supply petite veggies, edible, shoots and leaves, micro greens, and herb crystals.  Delivery was about $15 with next day service.  Fantastic.

The rose crystals were too clumpy to apply directly on the cocktail glass rim.  I put the crystals into a plastic bag and crushed them finely with a cylinder tumbler.