Did someone say happy hour? While our days of laying in the sun sipping cocktails are over, winter cocktails are starting to heat up! Grow your favourite ingredients on your windowsill or dining table – come happy hour, a few snips will add bursts of flavour to your evening drink.
USE THOSE HARVEST LEFTOVERS
Winter happy hour is a great excuse to use up any excess fruit from your autumn harvest. Those plums you pushed to the back of the freezer – blend them! Those peaches you blanched for crumble – muddle them with honey!
EASY WINTER GROWERS
If you don’t have a greenhouse, an indoor garden is a great way to grow herbs and fruit to enjoy through winter. Mint, parsley, and basil grow well indoors and are an excellent addition to any cocktail or mocktail. What’s a mojito without some fresh muddled mint? Ginger, lemon, and cinnamon plants also love keeping warm indoors. Cinnamon can be ground for toasty, spiced mulled wine brews and apple based mocktails.
INDOOR GARDEN TIPS
Most herbs are sun soakers and will grow well on a sunny windowsill or kitchen bench. Mint is best grown on its own while thyme, lavender, and basil grow well together. Miniature fruit trees grow well in pots and many enjoy the warmth found indoors over winter.
Basil
This versatile herb adds flavour to tomato-based dishes and refreshing summer drinks. Easy-growing basil prefers moist soil and grows well from seed. Sensitive to the cold, it thrives on sunny windowsills.
Mint
Its cool, sweet, light menthol flavour is delicious tossed through a salad or muddled in a mojito. An invasive grower, mint should have full sun and its own pot to call home.
Thyme
Infuse thyme in syrups and liqueurs. Pair its gentle, earthy flavour with honey and lemon. Or try thyme-infused simple syrup with bourbon. Grow this herb in full sun with drier soil.
Parsley
Italian flat-leaf parsley is perfect for earthy drinks and savoury dishes. A lemon parsley cocktail blends vodka, lemonade, and parsley juice for a refreshing kick. Grow parsley in full or part-sun with well-draining, moist soil.
Lemon tree
The Meyer lemon variety thrives indoors. These sweet lemons are ideal for freshly squeezed juice. Meyer lemon trees need 6 hours full sun daily and watering when the soil at 7cm deep starts to dry.
