Mixed Drinks Monday: blackberry sun tea & sex on a beach

As of this writing I have 93 pins on my Pinterest beverage board.  93.  I've made maybe 5.  Maybe.  I decided I needed to fix that this summer.  I'm going to attempt to try at least one new drink a week, all summer, aiming for one alcoholic and one non.  I pin these thinking they sound great but then fall back on my usual beer, Smirnoff, or just regular water.  If I pin them I should try them.  I also want to do this with buying as few specialty ingredients as possible, especially a lot of types of liquor (that adds up fast!). My intent is to blog about them good or bad.

First up this weekend was Blackberry Sun Tea.  I chose this one because it is close to the top of my Pinterest board, I had frozen blackberries in the freezer to use up, and I like iced tea a lot.

Ingredients:
-3 quarts (96 ounces) of water
-2 family sized tea bags
-approximately 2 cups of frozen or fresh blackberries

Directions:
1) Add all ingredients to a glass jar (I used a throughly cleaned out large pickle jar).
2) Set out in the sun for 3-6 hours.
3) Top off jar with cold water and refrigerate to your preferred temperature.

I sweetened my glass with simple syrup (equal parts water & sugar heated in a sauce pan until the sugar is dissolved, can keep in the fridge a super long time).  I didn't sweeten the whole jar so I'm not stuck on the same level of sweetness. 

This is incredibly easy to mix up.  Luke could almost handle it. 

a few hours in the sun like this...

and you get this!

It's delicious and so refreshing.  If I didn't want to try more recipes I would probably just keep making this all summer.  I took a pitcher to the lake and drank quite a bit.  It's a fairly healthy way to stay hydrated.

_______________________________________________________

My alcoholic beverage of choice this weekend was a Sex on the Beach cocktail.  I picked this one at Aldi on what I thought was my last trip there before our lake trip (it wasn't).  I was looking at the their wine selection and my Pinterest board trying to figure out what I could make without buying many ingredients, and since this one was near the top it won.
 

Ingredients:

1.3 oz coconut rum
1/3 oz peach schnaps
1/3 oz pineapple juice
splash of grenadine

Directions:
Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice.  Shake.  Strain into a glass with ice.  Drink.

Sounds easy, right?  I only had to buy grenadine (found at Kroger) and I like all the ingredients.  However, mixing those measurements was kinda a pain, even with the shot glass from the shaker.  I don't think I got them right, in fact, I know I messed up the 1.3oz and 1/3 ounce of the rum and schnaps.  And may have corrected by adding 1.3oz of each.  And then corrected the strongness with 3oz of pineapple juice (half a small can).  The drink was strong but good.  Good enough.  Enjoying it with this view more than made up for any questionable mixing on my part:

Then I got home and noticed my bottle of grenadine was still sealed.  And I recognized the red wine vinegar bottle (which I had up there for our supper) as the one I put in my drink.  (I hadn't had any alcohol to drink before mixing my first one.)  They are very similar in color and I was being hurried in order to see our Christmas tree lit on fire (keeping it classy at the lake).  So...I'm not sure I can really count this one as something I made since I messed it up pretty badly.  But then again, it was still plenty drinkable so I guess it wasn't a complete loss. 

Plus, the pin is linked to a site in a different language so maybe the lesson here is stick with drinks recipes written in English.  That's a new rule for this project.

The winner this week was definitely the iced tea.  Go make it and enjoy.

Blackberry Sun Tea source         Sex on a Beach source

__________________________________________________________________________
In the summer I aim to make a new drink every week and share them all here, good or bad!  See them all in chronological order by following the "Mixed Drink Monday" tag here or check out my favorites by scrolling down to "Mixed Drink Monday" on my recipes page!