Upgrade: Pimm's and Lemonade

Today, Ariel and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary. Perhaps not the way we had originally envisioned, but it was special nonetheless. We started off our evening with glasses of Pimm's and Lemonade on the porch. It's a special drink for us as it was the "signature drink" at our wedding, and was a big hit with the guests. My Pimm's recipe back in 2012 was one of my earliest posts. I make it a little differently now, so this is a great time to do an upgrade.

First and foremost, I make the drink stronger now than I used to. Since Pimm's is only 50 proof, it's still quite a low alcohol drink. For comparison, the Tom Collins has almost twice the alcohol in it. I think it's important to make sure the flavor of the Pimm's cuts through the soda. Part of the fun of Pimm's is really going nuts with the garnishes. For this, I cut the cucumber an angle to get a big, wide piece. The sprig of spearmint from the garden completes the summery picture. What I've done here is a traditional Pimm's, but any fruit you want will work just fine.

When I was setting up the wedding plans with our bartenders, it was decided that doing all five garnishes for every glass would be too time consuming. What they ended up doing is infusing the Pimm's ahead of time with all five, and serving it out of a large dispenser, which was a very nice presentation sitting on the bar. Each glass just got the cucumber and orange. We ended up with a few bottles of the infused Pimm's. We did a taste test today, with one glass made with the infused Pimm's, and the other made with an unaltered bottle from the cabinet. They were almost indistinguishable, but non-infused one tasted a little cleaner. So, if you're just making this for yourself, there's no need to get fancy.

This post is also, entirely by accident, a big milestone for No Free Lunch: my 200th blog post! My interest in the project has definitely waxed and waned over the years, and my output has been particularly lean over the last few years. However, I'm pleased to say I've really rediscovered the fun of writing about food lately. A quarter of the 200 posts have come in the last year alone. While my pace will no doubt slow once classes start, I hope to continue posting regularly. It's been a great creative outlet during the pandemic, and one day I will look back at these posts as a real time capsule. 

Ingredients

• 2 oz. Pimm's No. 1 Cup
• 4 oz. lemon-lime soda, such as 7 Up
• Garnish: lemon slice, orange slice, cucumber slices, strawberry, mint sprig

Equipment

• Collins glass
• Bar spoon

Instructions

Prepare the garnishes first. Cut one slice each of lemon and lime and halved them. Cut two wide, thin slices of cucumber at a sharp angle. Cut the strawberry in half.

Fill a Collins glass about 2/3 full with ice cubes. Add Pimm's and lemon-lime soda and stir briefly. Tuck the lemon, orange, cucumber, and strawberry into the glass. Clap the mint between the hands to release aromas and tuck into the glass.