Slow down for the weekend with this citrusy cocktail

There is a fairly long list of things I ought to be doing at this moment.

Our current stretch of beautiful weather has me feeling like a post Memorial Day high school senior. My brain is halfway into summer so don’t bother asking me to do anything harder than showing up and looking pretty.

In anticipation of spending the weekend living in the backyard, I scurried out this morning, when things were still cool, and gave our patio furniture a much needed scrub. While the chairs dried under the quickly warming sun, I knocked out a few small DIY projects and mixed a bit of compost into the garden.

Now that our outdoor space is ready for summer I know just how to kick things off — happy hour with a garden inspired bubbly cocktail.

The rosemary on my patio inspired this cocktail. Citrus and rosemary is one of my favorite combinations. In the winter, I go heavier on the lemon and add whiskey. In the summer I like to play up the grapefruit, and combine with gin, for a tart and refreshing end to a hot day.

Dirty Gardener

• 2 large lemon wedges
• 1 wedge of red grapefruit
• fresh rosemary
• 1 ounce of gin (like Bombay Sapphire)
• ice
• 3/4 cup diet tonic

In a cocktail shaker – muddle (aka mash up) two large lemon wedges, a slice of ruby red grapefruit, and a small spring of rosemary.

Add an ounce of gin (like Bombay Sapphire) and a cup of crushed ice.

Cover and shake it like you mean it until the outside gets frosty.

Strain the mixture into a glass and top with diet tonic.

Find a sunny patch then PAUSE and DRINK.

Make this a mock-tail: Skip the gin and, if available, add juniper DRY Soda.

Cheers!