We picked 22 lbs of blackberries earlier this summer and I’ve made a bunch of seedless blackberry jam, but we still have TONS of them in the freezer. We have friends coming in for the weekend and I decided that we should have a blackberry cocktail, so I did a quick Google search and found the Blackberry Bramble which sounded perfect.
The first step is to make the blackberry simple syrup (some recipes call for blackberry liqueur, but I wanted a fresher, more natural taste.)
I put 8 cups of frozen blackberries, 4 cups of water and 5 1/2 cups of sugar into a large sauce pan and brought it to a simmer and stirred until all the sugar was dissolved.
Once they came to a simmer, I turned off the heat and let the mixture steep for an hour.
Then I put a fine mesh sieve over a large bowl and strained the berries and mashed the berries to get as much of the juice as possible.
I am going to store it in a large jar until the weekend is over and then I am going to store it in glass jars in the freezer.
Here’s the cocktail recipe:
1/4 cup gin (Plymouth or Hendrick’s) or bourbon (2 oz.)
3 tbsp. fresh lemon juice (1 1/2 oz)
3 1/2 tbsp. blackberry simple syrup (1 3/4 oz.)
3 tbsp sparkling water (1 1/2 oz)
Lemon slice for garnish.
Gather all the ingredients. Fill a double old fashioned glass with ice. Fill a shaker with ice and add all the ingredients except the lemon slice and sparkling water. Close shaker and shake vigorously for 30 seconds. Strain into glass and top with sparkling water and garnish with lemon wheel. (I think it’s better with about 3 oz of sparkling water.)
My plan for the weekend is going to be a batched cocktail situation. I will use these proportions:
2 cups gin (16 oz)
1 1/2 cups fresh lemon juice (12 oz.)
1 3/4 cups blackberry simple syrup (14 oz.)
1 1/2 cups sparkling water (12 oz.)
I think that these will be perfect for hanging out in the water.
