Raspberry-Mint Mocktail recipe
If you’ve been following me on Instagram, you would have seen photos of game night E and I hosted earlier this month. Nothing brings me more joy than hosting (ok. a slight exaggeration), but what brings me the most fun are definitely game nights. We played my favourite board game of all time – Cluedo, that got everyone’s thinking cap on (+ it brought out their competitive strike too…). We also played a hilarious game of Taboo which is basically charades on steroids. I thoroughly recommend doing this if you’re in need of a fun activity with friends after a stressful work week. I made a cheese board and we served Italian & Tex-Mex because who doesn’t like pasta, nachos and some good ol’ fried chicken?
I’ve been experimenting with mocktails lately and knew it was the best little drink to start our evening with. I wanted something sweet, but not too sweet and most importantly refreshing. That called for a Raspberry-Mint Mocktail which was such a hit! The striking red hue also turned out to be an unexpected ode to my favourite character on Cluedo – Scarlet, which is what we named the mocktail. It’s so easy to make. However, I do recommend preparing the garnishes beforehand. Here’s the recipe:
serves: 8 pax
What You’ll Need
for the drink:
- Frozen raspberries – you can easily find this by the frozen ice cream section in any supermarket
- Monin syrup – I alternated between Lychee and Passionfruit to balance the sourness from the raspberry
- Soda water – I used Schweppes
- Mint leaves
to garnish:
- Lime
- Rosemary leaves
- Pandan leaves
- Lemongrass sticks
- Fresh raspberries
Let’s Prep
Just like cooking and baking, we always start by prepping to stay organized and save time. I started with the garnishing (in baking lingo, this would be our dry ingredients). I chopped up about four limes into thin round slices, about a dozen small rosemary leaf stems, and chopped and folded the pandan leaves into little knots – for the aesthetics. A little tip I learned from my brother-in-law who used to bartend at Starbucks is to cut off the lower end of the lemongrass stem which amplified its fragrance and made all the difference. I then popped the lemongrass sticks into E’s repurposed weekly juice bottles and they turned out super cute. Finally, I rinsed the fresh raspberries and popped them onto skewers. These would be my drink toppers!
Next, the wet ingredients – frozen raspberries & mint leaves. I rinsed and finely chopped up about two packets of mint leaves. They weren’t fine enough so I ran them through my super reliable KitchenAid food processor which did the trick. I also muddled a bag of frozen raspberries and let them cool in the fridge.
Mixing Up The Drink
By prepping everything beforehand in little bowls, we had an organized section to work with which made mixing the drinks so much easier. Here’s how E mixed the drinks in classic Gordon Ramsay fashion:
- half a teaspoon of mashed mint leaves – in
- a teaspoon of muddled raspberries – in
- 1 ounce of Monin – Passionfruit/ Lychee syrup – in
- add lime & muddle a tiny bit
- ice cubes – in
- add soda water until glass is full
- garnish with your garnish of choice – rosemary, pandan or lemongrass
- mix well, top with raspberry skewers and serve!
This was such a refreshing and rich mocktail that was so much fun to make. You can always pre-mix the syrup + lime + soda water beforehand and repurpose larger juice bottles to serve in, especially if you’re having a bigger group over and prefer everything to be pre-made in advance. However, I wanted my guests to be able to customize the drinks to their preferred level of sweetness. Also, let’s not forget we all have naughty (but nice) friends/ family who may want to throw in small doses of rum or vodka and turn this into a Scarlet Cocktail, so I love the flexibility that a DIY mocktail station brings!
Try this at your next dinner party and let me know how it goes! Or better yet, share with me some of your go-to recipes and I might just share them on the blog.
Until next time.
Love, alyia