Dry Recipe: Sakura Sparkler

As foretold in my March cocktail events round-up, cherry blossom season is upon us.  This year, celebrate not merely by getting outside to see them, but by adding them to your drinks.  I’ve already offered you a recipe that uses an edible flower as garnish in the Blood Orange Daiquiri.  And cherry blossoms (or sakura) are also edible and thus fair garnish game.  You can even find cherry blossom comestibles on Amazon if you don’t have a tree of your own at hand.  We’ll get to that, but first let me introduce you to what we will be making:  a refreshing, non-alcoholic, sparkling beverage called the Sakura Sparkler:

Like my previous non-alcoholic cocktails (see the Mexican Candy Soda and the Actually Dry Martini), this one is made with Seedlip’s Garden 108.

The cherry-blossom component comes in two parts.  First, the drink itself includes a Sakura Cherry Blossom Honey Syrup, which provides a sweet floral flavor that goes well with the Garden 108 and is balanced against freshly squeezed lemon juice.

Second, I took some dried cherry blossoms and made ice cubes out of them.  Dried cherry blossoms are available on Amazon; so are large ice cube trays.  Making cherry-blossom ice cubes is simple.  If you’re working with the dried variety, rinse them thoroughly to remove the salt.  (If you’ve got fresh cherry blossoms, you probably still want to wash them.)  Next, fill the tray with water and drop a couple cherry blossoms in each cube.  If you’re working with dried cherry blossoms, you might want to gently unfold them in the water, and I pushed mine toward the bottom of the tray so they would be more visible from the surface of the ice when frozen.  Finally, place them in the freezer and allow to freeze.

Mine came out looking like this:

Put these all together and you have a refreshing, alcohol-free drink perfect for welcoming spring.  Here is the recipe:

Print Pin

Sakura Sparkler

Enjoy the Sakura Sparkler, a Seedlip-based cocktail perfect for spring, featuring cherry-blossom honey syrup and cherry-blossom ice cubes.

Course Drinks

Cuisine Mocktail

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Total Time 10 minutes minutes

Servings 1 cocktail

Calories 70kcal

Author Geoffrey Wyatt

Ingredients

Cocktail

• 1 1/2 oz. Seedlip Garden 108
• 3/4 oz. Sakura Cherry Blossom Honey Syrup
• 3/4 oz. Freshly squeezed lemon juice
• soda water

Ice cubes

• cherry blossoms

Instructions

Ice cubes

• In advance of making the drink, fill large ice cube tray with water.  Add 1 to 3 cherry blossoms per cube.  If working with dried cherry blossoms, be sure to rinse the salt off the flowers before adding.  Try to orient the flowers in the cube so they will appear near the surface when the ice freezes.  Leave in the freezer until completely frozen.

Cocktail

• Combine the Seedlip, syrup and lemon juice in a shaking tin with ice.  Shake vigorously and strain into rocks glass.
• Add cherry-blossom ice cube.
• Top with soda water and stir gently to combine with the other ingredients.

Enjoy!

Advertisement: