Drink This: Brynne’s Pink Lemonade

After making Prickly Pear Margaritas last week, I had a ton of prickly pear puree left.  Now, you can only make prickly pear margaritas so many times in a row before they begin to lose their appeal, as delicious as they may be.  So what to do with the almost full bottle of puree?

I fixated on the idea of creating a pink lemonade cocktail. I tried simply substituting lemon for lime in the same margarita recipe, as a starting point.  The tequila was way too overwhelming.  I thought rum would be too sweet.  I decided on vodka, and added some seltzer water, both to make it less boozy, and because carbonation makes everything better.

The best part?  This would still be totally delicious if you choose to make it non-alcoholic!  Just leave out the vodka, and enjoy the best pink lemonade ever.*

[*disclaimer: this has not been conclusively proven, but it is this author’s strong opinion.]

For each serving of Brynne’s Pink Lemonade, you will need:

1.5 oz. vodka – Bryan likes Tito’s, made in Austin, Texas

3 oz. lemonade – by far, the best is Simply Lemonade

2 tea spoons prickly pear puree – not an actual measuring teaspoon, but the smaller spoon from my
silverware drawer.  One of these days I will remember to use a real measuring spoon!

Splash carbonated water )(to taste) – Okay, let me be real with you. I was super tempted to buy one of those cute little green bottles of Pellegrino, but I could not bring myself to pay that much for water with bubbles in it, no matter how pretty it would look in a photograph.  Even if I had bought just one to use (and reuse!) in photographs, I would personally buy and use the cheap stuff myself.  I take it as a personal offense when a bottle of water costs as much as a bottle of beer.  So Ozarka it was, because I stood there for five minutes pricing each bottle per ounce. You’re welcome.

One lone lemon – this is just for a slice as a garnish, so feel free to leave it out, as I will whenever I’m not feeling fancy.

Shake in a cocktail shaker with plenty of ice, and strain into an adorable glass.  Please note, the adoreableness of the glass is absolutely essential, because I’m pretty sure it makes this cocktail taste even better – I found a set of these at Goodwill, and think they look just like some at Anthropologie!

I hope you try this and enjoy it!  Seriously – doesn’t pink make everything better?  I have a feeling I’ll be coming up with other pink cocktails in the future utilizing the prickly pear puree.  Pouring it over vanilla ice cream is also starting to sound really delicious!  Do you guys have any other ideas?