The tinny music box melody heralded the promise of summer’s sweetness on the hottest days of my childhood. When the ice cream truck rolled through the neighborhood, my parents would buy me my favorite ice pop, the one swirled with orange and red. I had forgotten about that icy treat until one summer when I experimented with a version of this aquavit cocktail.

Muddling strawberries in the caraway-based spirit and shaking it with orange juice and bitters yielded a surprise likeness to my old favorite childhood treat. Today, this cocktail tastes like the essence of summer to me.

Use the ripest, sweetest strawberries you can find. Then you won’t need to bother with simple syrup. Strawberries, if at the peak of ripeness, and orange juice are all the sweetening this drink needs.

This aquavit cocktail is easy to convert to a mocktail. Simply omit the aquavit and adjust the orange juice and sparkling water to taste. Whether you use the bitters depends on the nature of your guest’s preferences or restrictions. The nonalcoholic alternative will lack the complexity and flavor profile of the original drink, but it’s hard to complain about a sparkling fruity beverage without all the added sugar of many commercial sodas and juices.

Sparkling Aquavit Cocktail with Strawberry and Orange

Daytona Danielsen

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Course Drinks

Servings 1

Ingredients

4 medium strawberries
2 ounces aquavit choose a caraway-based one like Linie
1 ounce orange juice freshly squeezed or best quality
3 dashes Angostura bitters
2 dashes orange bitters
1 1/2 ounces sparkling water
Twist of orange peel for garnish

Instructions

Muddle 3 strawberries in the bottom of a glass or cocktail shaker and pour in the aquavit. Pour in the orange juice, then add the bitters and stir. Fill a tall double old fashioned glass with ice and strain the cocktail into it (this will take some patience and effort as the muddled strawberries may clog the strainer). Top with sparkling water. Garnish with the remaining strawberry and orange twist.

Keyword aquavit, cocktail, drinks, strawberries, summer