Apple Mandarum Cocktail

Heading into Spring with enough homegrown lemon balm to feed a small army (if that were possible), I decided now was the perfect time to turn my hand to creating an original cocktail: my Apple Mandarum

A few months ago when my mandarin tree was prolifically producing too many mandarins to throw a stick at, I made cordial, amongst many things.

I hadn’t yet used my Mandarin Cordial and thought I’d try it out. This, along with my desire to use my delicious lemon balm herb (of the same family as lemon verbena but with more wider leaves), was a perfect collision of inspirational ingredients to make a super-delish creation of my very own.

Not surprisingly, my Apple Mandarum cocktail features apple, mandarin syrup and rum (white rum to be exact). Not to forget the lemon balm of course! It grows  so prolifically it needs to be added to EVERY summer cocktail. The blend of mint vs lemon tones are wonderful and to be honest I’d picked a big bunch from my garden before even looking in my larder for the other ingredients.

Apple Mandarum

Serves: 2

Ingredients

• handful of lemon balm
• a few cubes of ice
• 1/2 apple, cored and diced
• 1 part mandarin syrup
• 1 part white rum
• juice of 1/2 a lemon
• 4 parts lemonade

Method

1. Wash your lemon balm and muddle, or roughly chop.
2. Add all ingredients directly to the glass, top with lemonade. Simple!

Now I can say that I did try this several times, just to be sure. After all, making a good cocktail takes time and lots of practice. You need to get it ‘right’ after all *she said with a twinkle in her eye*.

Roll on summer!