the cuke

This past weekend, J's Aunt surprised us with a little housewarming herb garden, which was incredibly sweet of her.

Last year's basil plant thrived, and we had every intention of getting another this year. Unfortunately, moving and minor home repairs took priority, and we were starting to accept our "it's too late in the season" fate. I'm so glad Aunt Brenda came to the rescue.

We now have a pretty packed little garden, including: thyme, parsley, basil, mint, chives, rosemary, coriander and lemon verbena. We use parsley, thyme, basil and coriander pretty regularly, but I've been thinking up creative ways to use the other varieties.

The lemon verbena smells amazing, but I've never used it before. Lightbulb moment: I'm addicted to soda water and lemon these days, so I muddled a bit of the herb in a glass and poured soda water over top. Genius. It's amazing and feels kinda fancy.

Curious if there were other lemon verbena recipes out there, I found this great article at apartment therapy. The Lemon Verbena and Orange Blossom Fizz also sounds amazing, and I'm definitely going to make some Lemon Verbena simple syrup.

Experiment number two involved a happy combination of fresh mint and the gin that we always have on hand. It's called The Cuke, and it was super good: refreshing, not too sweet, and full of mint and lime flavour. We didn't use Hendrick's gin (although I adore this gin - try it even if you think you hate gin), but the recipe turned out great with what we had on hand. 

I'm definitely going to try out more of the recipes, and you should too.

As an aside: I highly recommend serving your delicious cocktail in a vintage highball glass. I'm positive that it adds to the flavour.