Lavender Lemonade Cocktail

I'm a bartender, and I love my job. One of the best parts about the restaurant I work at is that every season, we have new seasonal cocktails, and all of the bartenders get together and have a big "let's make cocktails and drink until we decide which ones goes on the menu."

Last year, I was on shift so I missed like half of the meeting and didn't get to drink, but I still got a chance to pitch a couple of my ideas for our spring cocktail menu. Most of my ideas didn't make it, but I had only been a bartender for about a year at that point so I wasn't exactly surprised. However, I did have one idea that everyone loved and we ended up making all summer.

Now, if you remember, sometime in between 2016-2017, lavender lemonade became a huge thing. Like I couldn't walk into a coffee shop or a hipster tea place, without seeing it on the menu. Now, lavender is way more popular in drinks, like coffee or hot chocolate, but lavender lemonade is the trailblazer for adding lavender to beverages (It may not be, but I literally never saw lavender in anything before the lavender lemonade trend took off).

I had the ingenious idea to add vodka to it.

Hey, I didn't say it was going to be a super fancy drink. I'd only been bartending for a year, my cocktail creating skills were very underdeveloped at this point, but I was still super excited about it. It ended up being one of our most sold cocktails over the summer, along with a strawberry rum drink that my coworker came up with. Not gonna lie, I hardcore would stalk the restaurants reviews for people talking about my drink.

Honestly, it was one of my biggest accomplishments from the last couple years. I called it "Dress up like Hipster" on our menu because 1) Taylor Swift, 2) this is from the song 22, and I was 22 at the time. I thought I was being clever.

Anyways, now that its off our menu, I figured I'd share the recipe I came up with so you all can make it at home and enjoy it this summer!

Dress Up Like Hipsters (Lavender Lemonade Cocktail

Lavender Simple Syrup

(Now you can buy this, but I've always made mine because it's got a more natural flavor)

1 cup water

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup dried lavender

Start by putting the water and the sugar in a small saucepan on the stove. Bring to a boil and stir until the sugar is completely dissolved.

Lower heat to medium low heat, then add in the dried lavender and let simmer covered on the stove for about 20-30 minutes.

Take a glass container (leftover empty alcohol bottles work really well, especially if you want to double the recipe and make a bigger batch. Just don't use flavored alcohol bottles so you don't accidentally add extra flavors to your syrup.) and pour the liquid through a mesh strainer to prevent any lavender blossoms from getting into the final product.

Stick the bottle in the fridge for two to six hours before use, depending on the amount of the syrup.

Now onto the fun part!