A Strawberry Cooler for the Summer

On our trip to Napa Valley last month, Karen enjoyed a wonderful pre-dinner cocktail at our visit to Redd. The drink, Strawberry Blonde, was very refreshing and a wonderful thirst quencher, perfect for a warm summer day. Karen was talking about the drink for days afterwards so I decided to see if I could get the formula for this cocktail. Guy, the general manager at Redd, was kind enough to share the recipe with us.

The recipe calls for 3 parts of strawberry-citrus infused vodka, 1/2 part lime juice, 1/2 part Velvet Falernum, and a splash of simple syrup. These ingredients are mixed together, topped with club soda, and served on the rocks in a highball glass. The drink is so smooth that you barely even notice the alcohol.

Of course, in order to make this cocktail, you need to have some strawberry-citrus infused vodka on hand. Since you'd be hard-pressed to find such a flavored vodka at the liquor store, you'll have to make it yourself. A few weeks ago, I picked up a magnum of Ketel One vodka which would serve as the base for the drink. We decided to simplify the recipe a bit by focusing on the strawberry component of the flavoring, so I brought home several pints of fresh berries. After washing and hulling the berries, I cut them in half, dropped them into a glass spigot jar, and poured in the entire bottle of Ketel One. I sealed the jar and placed it into the refrigerator to allow the flavor of the fruit to infuse into the alcohol.


After a surprisingly enjoyable but exhausting hour of trampolining, we decided that we needed a drink to cool off. We had only infused the vodka for a week, but we thought that we'd give our homemade concoction a try. The cocktail really hit the spot. It was very clean and refreshing, and went down far too easily for a drink with that much alcohol in it. The flavor of the vodka was good, though we both thought that another week of infusion with a fresh batch of berries should up the flavor to the desired level. Nevertheless, the cocktail was excellent, good enough for us go back for a second drink. We are looking forward to enjoying the summer with our new cocktail.