Summertime is in full swing, and after a long day with the kids in the house, a nice, cold cocktail on the lanai is in order. Recently, I decided to shake up something delicious with the blueberry jam I made last month (you can get the recipe here).

Have you tried making a cocktail with jam before? I remember the first time I heard about it--I warily gave it a try, despite expecting the outcome to be a syrupy, undrinkable mess. Boy, was I wrong! Jam allows you to mix up a fruity, delicious cocktail when you don't have the fresh stuff on hand. It concentrates the flavor of the fruit in a way that muddling just can't replicate. And it eliminates the need for simple syrups/agave/sweeteners in your mixed drinks. It's really delicious, when done well. Give it a try!

Blueberry Lemon Thyme Cocktail

Juice of half a lemon
2 oz. gin (I prefer Hendricks here)
2-3 sprigs fresh thyme
1 oz. blueberry jam (1 heaping spoonful or more, to taste)
Club soda

In a cocktail shaker, muddle lemon juice, thyme and gin. Spoon in jam, pop lid on shaker and 'Shake shake shake, shake shake shake, shake your booty. Shake your booty' for a good minute. Yup, it seems like a long time, but it takes a bit for the jam to break down. Pop off the lid, add a few cubes of ice, then shake some more. (You don't want to add ice at the beginning, it'll water your drink down too much.)

Fill a rocks glass with ice. Strain contents of shaker over the ice, and add club soda to the top. Give it a quick stir, garnish with a lemon wedge and fresh thyme sprig, then find a comfy spot on the patio, kick your feet up and enjoy.

hendricks-gin-blueberry-lemon-thyme-cocktail-2

I love a good cocktail. Forget cheap sugary drinks or the swill we guzzled as broke college kids. I adore quality spirits combined in new, inventive ways that are designed to bring out the subtle flavor nuances of the ingredients. For me, it isn't about the buzz...that's just a secondary payoff to the process of playing with flavor and tickling the palate with new, subtle combinations.

My love of booze began back in law school, when I moonlighted as a cocktail waitress and occasional bartender to pay my way through school. Although my tastes have improved considerably since those days, the joy of mixing and experimenting began behind a stainless steel bar in a cajun food restaurant and expanded to my own liquor cabinet. Over the years, I've visited some of the best bartenders of the craft cocktail movement, tasted the creations of adventurous mixologists, and sampled the eclectic pairings of booze-minded chefs. As a result, I love nothing more than to play around in my own kitchen with new cocktail recipes and a couple of nights a week, you can find me dragging out the jigger and shaker, digging through the produce drawer, and mixing up something tasty to drink.

Tonight, as I sipped my drink, I thought: wouldn't it be great if I could marry my love of booze and my love of photography?

And just like that, a new personal photography project was born.

The timing is perfect. This week, I will conclude my first 365-day photo project. I've been considering where to go from here: will I continue daily shooting, or transition into a weekly project? Or do I just take a break from the pressure of a 365?

I'm not entirely sure what I'll do after my 365-day project concludes...but I can tell you, it will include a bunch of photos of cocktails. Booze and a camera...sounds like heaven to me.

Tonight, I decided to play with a recipe for Bee's Knees. This is a classic cocktail from the Prohibition era that used citrus and honey to cover up the shudder-inducing bathtub gin that was a staple of the time. Tonight, I decided to drag out the Lehua honey from Big Island Bees. My husband picked up a jar of this delicate honey infused with cinnamon, and it is amazing. Sweet and slightly floral, the honey is balanced beautiful by the woodsy cinnamon. I couldn't wait to shake it up with one of my favorite gins, Hendricks. Although I would have preferred to use Botanist Gin, alas I am currently out, and I figured the light and floral Hendricks would work well with the honey. And since I was using the Hawaiian Lehua honey, I decided to translate the name into Hawaiian.

Here's the recipe:

Meli Kuli (Bee's Knees)

2 oz. Hendricks gin

3/4 oz. freshly-squeezed lemon juice

1 oz. hot water

1 tsp. Lehua honey (Can't find it? Feel free to substitute any local, unfiltered, raw honey. Be adventurous--there are more than 300 varieties of honey in the U.S., all with their own flavor profile. You can't go wrong!)

Place hot water and honey in a cocktail shaker and stir or shake until the honey is completely dissolved. Add gin and lemon juice and ice. Shake for a full 60 seconds, then strain into a chilled martini glass and serve.