{Congratulations to Robyn! An email is on its way to you. Everyone else, remember that you get a 20% discount on a similar Little Oratory book bag from Wanda, and 15% off everything else in her store!}
Dear readers, today is the historic and epic day that we (meaning Rosie) put menu tabs in our menu bar!! Yes! We have done the seemingly impossible (for us)!
To get the full effect, hurl your phone down and rev up your computer. Now, change is hard so be patient with yourself and with us. This stunning development represents us overcoming a very great hurdle in our collective psyche – the struggle between our perfectionism (must reorganize the whole blog!) and our lack of ability and concentration (ah, just throw something up there, the bread needs baking!). They should make it easier to find things around here, and hopefully we can soon put more exciting things where we've left placeholder pages. We'll keep everyone updated.
Meanwhile, notice the actual tab for The Little Oratory — this is the actual page with the dedicated link-up! So you can click on that and voila!
I think that calls for a drink, don't you??
Yesterday on {pretty, happy, funny, real} I promised a recap of this cocktail!
I'm convinced that an official drink makes a party a whole lot more fun than it otherwise would be*.
Despite not really being a drinker at all, I personally have a great time at our own parties when we bestow an even slightly unusual drink on our worthy guests**.
It doesn't have to be very strong at all — it just has to be something official in the sense of “this is the official drink of this party!”
Even serving your official beer***, even with a variety, somehow makes people sit up and have a bit more fun. Try concocting a cocktail (and then drink it and say that 3 times fast!) and see how much fun it is.
Usually we serve Mint Juleps on Derby Day. That's official, isn't it? We aren't Southerners and we aren't really horse-racing fans, but the Chief does make a mean Mint Julep****, so why not? This year we were otherwise occupied on that day (probably just as well, because this cold spring saw no mint whatsoever in the garden, and buying mint is a sign of weakness as far as I'm concerned!).
But this past weekend, the graduation party coincided with the Belmont Stakes.
The race was mildly inspiring in the theme department in that there was the possibility of a horse (California Chrome) winning the Triple Crown, so I went with the vibe. Mind you, high school graduation and mixed drinks are not exactly to be paired under normal circumstances, and it's only if you home school that you can get away with this sort of thing! No children were served alcohol*****, don't worry.
The “official” official Belmont Stakes drinks left me unmoved. Instead, I got my rhubarb out of the freezer. So much rhubarb! After pies and jams I still had 12 cups left! And more in the garden!
In the end, I got 3 quarts of rhubarb syrup!
Now, I was getting ready for this party, mind you, as well as brainstorming a drink, so I don't have photos of every step of the way. But the main idea is a shrub, which can be any tart sort of syrup. It's my friend Amy who pointed out to me what the real name of this cocktail should be! Shrub it is.
Then, a little lemon… and club soda for sparkle. As to the active ingredient, well, necessity was the mother of invention. I had an extra large container of gin, about one tenth full, alas. Ditto vodka. And a clear spirit was called for, on account of the blush of the rhubarb needing to remain undistorted. Too late to go out to the store for more! So I made two carafes and guests chose which one they wanted.
They were almost unanimous in loving it. A few curmudgeons didn't care for rhubarb or didn't approve of sweet drinks despite making mint juleps on a regular basis so what is their problem? But most loved it!
Rhubarb Shrub for the Belmont Stakes
Rhubarb syrup.
The basic recipe for this is 2 cups rhubarb, 1 cup sugar, 2 cups water. I had 12 cups of rhubarb!
Boil the ingredients together until the rhubarb falls apart and the sugar dissolves. I am going to experiment with cooking the rhubarb separately, because I think that you lose too much sugar when you strain the solids out. But I did rescue most of it by pouring water over it and using that in lemonade.
Strain the resulting mash into a bowl through cheesecloth in a strainer. My liquid isn't as red as it might be because my rhubarb tends to come out green! But yours might be redder.
Lemon juice — 1 teaspoon for every cup of syrup
Gin or vodka
Mix the above ingredients in your carafe. I used about 6 parts syrup, 1 part lemon juice, and 2 or 3 parts gin or vodka. It's really up to you how strong you want to make it. Taste it and see what you like!
Pour the mixture over ice, halfway up your cup. Add enough Club soda to fill the rest of the glass. Garnish with a twist of Lime. (My twist there is very small, so it makes it look like that is a huge glass of shrub!)
Enjoy!
________________
*This is the premise of a very good article that changed my way of entertaining. I'll link to it in {bits & pieces} on Saturday!
**Note that I can't claim that any extra fun is had by our guests! But I enjoy myself.
***The Chief, who could be described as the original unironic hipster, favored Pabst Blue Ribbon until Yuengling beer came to Massachusetts. Now we serve that. I think. As well as home brew when available!
**** And Natasha, who is undeniably the hostess with the mostest when it comes to themed parties, made sure we have silver julep cups. No question that a julep needs a silver julep cup! I love them.
*****But I did use the rhubarb syrup to sweeten a batch of lemonade, and it was delicious as well!
~And — waiting to hear about Sukie, waiting to go be with her! Exciting! Please pray! ~
Jessica Fanaro says
We are getting rhubarb from our CSA share, so I think we will have to try this!
Praying for Sukie – so exciting!!
anothermom says
Adding prayers here for Sukie and sending congratulations to your dear Bridget!
Can you please share where you found those amazing bottles?
Barbara says
I bet that would be tasty made with Southern Comfort, and you would gain a little blush, and keep it sweet, as well. Well done, Leila. I do favor a house cocktail , too. Usually I chose one and serve it all summer long. House iced tea, also.
Tamara says
I love it!! Im quite sure I would have more fun at parties with a house cocktail. We served a peach sangria at our wedding and that remains one of my favorite touches.
I was going to make rhubarb syrup with all.that.rhubarb. I was offered by my neighbor but it was all gone before I could get over there! *sob* I must make mental note to jump faster on all free garden fare. I cant pay money for good rhubarb now! That would be like buying mint!
Tamara says
Praying for Sukie too!!
Wanda says
Congratulations Robyn!!! I look forward to hearing from you!
Mary Catherine says
The tabs are a great idea! Thanks for also leaving the links we’re used to, but I’m always referring people to your blog for any number of practical or spiritual subjects, and I’m always searching for old posts — the tabs will make the beginner’s life and mine so much easier! Thanks!
Jenny says
Tell Sukie June 14th is a great day to have a baby! Besides being my birthday, it is a minor national holiday: Flag Day! Prayers for her and the baby.
Sukie says
Jenny–the town that we lived in when we were little made huge deal of Flag Day–it was the big parade for the year! Definitely holds a fond place in my heart. I’ll see what I can do… 🙂
Happy Birthday!
-Sukie
Patty says
So that’s what I should do with all the rhubarb in my freezer! I planted a single plant before finding out my family doesn’t care for cooked rhubarb. Of course the plant is quite prolific and I haven’t known what to do with its abundance. haha
Cristina says
Praying for Sukie, thank you, Rosie, for the tabs, congratulations, Bridget, and yay for cocktail drinks! I’m not an alcohol drinker but cocktails, alcoholic or not, are very festive. Beautiful pictures, aunt Leila. It looked like everybody had a great time.
Sue says
I made “The Shrub” it was delicious!
Tamara says
Since you mentioned it, I experimented today with cooking the rhubarb separately. I had great results! I’m about to add the syrup to my iced tea! 🙂