Thirsty Thursday - My First Attempt at "Mocktails"

As you can tell, this October, Laura and I are featuring some of our favorite drink concoctions on Thursdays. The past few weeks I have been a bit mystified by Kath's "mocktails." The most unusual combo has been basil and selzter. When it comes to drinks I am definitely more of a sweets kind of gal. If I am out drinking, though, I have to be a bit more aware of my love for sweet drinks. They are a bit easier on the tastebuds and can be pretty easy to throwback without realizing how much you are drinking. Note to readers: keep track, otherwise you will end up hugging the porcelain throne!

I have an awesome black mail pick of my husband on one of those nights, but..... I was told I was not allowed to put it on the internet :(

While trying to find a good pic of Rusty, post drinking, I found this instead. Here we both are on New Year's....on our way to regretting our drink choices :) (but it sure was fun)

But I digress! Mocktails, love 'em or hate 'em, I had to give one a try.

I know Kath usually uses selzter and then adds some fruit and maybe flavoring. For inspiration, I decided to immitate one of my favorite dinnertime cocktails at home, Flavored water and Malibu Rum....Yum Yum!

Instead I used these:

In order to make my first mocktail EXTRA special, I made fancy ice cubes. I started with 2 types of fruit, limes and oranges. For each batch I zested the fruit, removed the skin and processed the "meat" and zest.

I added a bit of seltzer to the mix, then spooned it into an ice cube tray. I made 16 cubes, but probably could have made more if I had another tray.

After the cubes of color were frozen, I plopped a few in a glass with plain seltzer and coconut extract.

A big swig and .....YUCK! The coconut extract did not mix well with the seltzer. It smelled very cheap and fake. The ice cubes provided great color but no flavor. Basically I had bright, chilled coconut fizzy water....and I do NOT love coconut water.

Epic failure!

But wait! I still have some preflavored/sweetened water in the fridge! A splash of coconut, 3 cubes de color and some mandarin orange flavored Walmart water and VOILA! A yummy still tastes like cocktail "mocktail."

At least my second try was somewhat of a success. The funny thing about all of this is that I didn't really need for it to be a "mocktail." I am very content having a small glass of cheap, fizzy, calorie free water with dinner. I usually only add rum if it has been "one of those days" and in that case, will probably still add rum.

Whether you need a "mocktail" or a cocktail, you now know a fun color combo for flavored ice cubes (and know better than to mix coconut extract with seltzer).

In honor of my "mocktail" tonight I leave you with a fun video that we posted on National Coconut Day.