This cocktail recipe post is brought to you by a good bout of serendipity. When one of my favorite blogs, Stir and Strain, chose Nuts for May’s Mixology Monday theme, I had even more incentive to perfect and share an Amaretto cocktail I had been cultivating for my best friend, Devon, and her fiancé, Rob, as a contribution to the couple’s recipe collection. The cocktail’s nutty and sweet – just like the best kind of love!

[I know that sounded cheesy, but, seriously, this drink makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside!]

She likes a good vodka tonic with lemon or an amaretto sour. He likes drinks like “caramel appletinis,” but always wishes they looked less, well, ridiculous. And so in their honor, I created a dessert cocktail with elegant dignity – the Blueberry Macaron Tonic. While the tartness of blueberry-infused vodka pairs well with the sweet and nutty Amaretto liquor, tonic water to top off helps to anchor the concoction. Closing my eyes while drinking it outside on a sunny day transported me to eating a blueberry macaron in Paris’s Luxembourg Garden. Perhaps best of all, the drink doesn’t come in a crazy color drizzled with caramel.

 

Blueberry Macaron Tonic

Makes one cocktail

• 1.5 oz of blueberry-infused vodka see below
• 1.5 oz of amaretto
• 0.5 oz of freshly squeezed lemon juice
• Top with tonic water (or about 1/2 a cup)
• ice

In a double old-fashioned glass with ice, pour in the first three ingredients. Stir. Top off with the tonic. Enjoy in good times and in bad.

 

Blueberry-Infused Vodka

I often make my vodka infusions by quartering a 1.75 liter bottle of vodka, which means 4 separate infused vodkas, each a little less than 2 cups (~1.87).  This helps me have an affordable range of different flavors to use in my cocktails, so I’ve yet to be bored or uninspired by my collection.

• an airtight container large enough to fit all ingredients (I use a gallon-sized mason jar that is, frankly, too large)
• ~2 cups of vodka
• 9 oz of blueberries
• ~1 cup of sugar

Combine ingredients in your airtight container. Keep refrigerated and shake for each day of infusion. Infuse for at least a week and up to a month! For blueberries I’ve done a month and it tastes lovely.