Green Thumb (aka Cucumber Gin Spritz)

For this recipe I use St. George Botanivore gin, but any classic gin works great! 

The vibrant cucumber juice base is delicious on its own. Try it with sparkling water and serve it as a spring mocktail. Just make sure to save plenty of juice for the gin! 

Yield  2 low-ball cocktails

Ingredients
4 ounces of cucumber lime juice, recipe below

4 ounces of gin

2 ounces of Elderflower Liqueur 

2 ounces of sparkling water*

Garnish: fresh mint sprig or cucumber slice 

Method
Pour cucumber juice, gin and elderflower liqueur into a shaker filled with ice. Shake vigorously and then pour into two ice-filled lowball glasses. Top with sparkling water. Garnish with fresh mint or a slice of cucumber. 

*Note on measuring: when you make this drink don’t worry about precisely measuring your sparking water. Start with 1 ounce, and essentially a “big glug”. If it’s too boozy add another glug.

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Cucumber Lime Juice

Yield Approximately 2 cups of juice

Ingredients

1 large English cucumber 

3 limes, juiced (this should give you 3 ounces of juice)

1 ounce of light agave syrup or simple syrup 

leaves of fresh mint from 2 sprigs of mint 

Pinch of salt 

Method 
Peel the cucumber removing half of the skin. I do this by peeling stripes down the entire length of the cucumber. The remaining skin will give the juice a beautiful green color. Using all of the skin in the puree gives the juice an almost too-dark algae-like color. 

Puree all ingredients in a blender until pulverized into a liquid. This will take a little starting/stopping and moving the contents around in the blender’s pitcher to get this going. Once the mixture is pulverized, pour into a strainer over a bowl. Use a rubber spatula or scraper to gently press solids, and strain out as much liquid as possible. 

Transfer liquid to a clean airtight container and keep in the fridge until ready to use.