It was originally meant to document my journey to acing some foreign language exams (that’d been a backburner since the 1990s), including my adventures in bread baking and hip-hop karaoke in Spanish and French. Oh yeah, you were about to meet my sourdough starter, Taiwo, and hear me flow with the old school. #GetScared
But the pressure from preparing for the DELE and the DELF, then documenting it all for the internet, was so stressful that I almost forgot I’d stopped drinking. So, Mocktail Goals. Anyway….
Although I’d already known about Toni Tipton-Martin, I had no idea her book on African-American mixology was about to hit the shelves last fall. Unsure of how to mocktail-ize hard mixed drinks at the time, I figured Tipton-Martin’s Juke Joints, Jazz Clubs, and Juice would be too challenging for my personal mocktail goals.
I won’t know for sure until I start mocktail-izing, right?
But not for this post. There’s more than one zeroproof bev in Tipton-Martin’s book, like her Bubbly Cocktail, an homage to two drinks by Beatrice Hightower Cates and Lucille Bishop Smith.
I haven’t been missing Champagne, but still. Bye, girl.
Bubbly Cocktail by Toni Tipton-Martin
- White grape juice OR pineapple juice
- Apple juice
- Lemon juice
- Lemon-lime soda OR ginger ale
- Mint sprigs
- Lemon or lime garnish
Equipment: shaker cup, bar spoon
My mix used pineapple juice, two muddle mint leaves, and homemade ginger syrup with club soda instead of ginger ale.
Me: The pineapple stood out. I could barely taste the apple juice. There were hints of mint and ginger. The leftover pour without soda had the flavor I really wanted.
GJ: Tart. Fruity. Not too sweet. I could kinda taste the mint, but not the ginger (until you poured one without soda).
Another Round? Daily for both of us with less club soda so we can taste more ginger.