When I was little, my brother and I would go up to Washington and visit my grandparents for a week or so in the summers. We played a lot of tennis (my grandpa played tennis everyday until he was in his eighties), had a lot of water fights, went to the pool to swim, and ate a lot of baked goods. My grandpa had many talents. Aside from tennis, he was also a terrific gardener and a very skilled baker. I loved waking up to a delicious sweet treat in the mornings and having a perfectly baked dessert after dinner. He made donuts, pancakes, pies, cobblers, and so much more. Summer was always great because he had lots of berries and rhubarb growing in his garden. His rhubarb pie was a family favorite.
A couple years ago my grandfather passed away and not long after that my grandma also passed away. We spent many weekends at their house going through books and finding fun family heirlooms. But, the big question was, "what do we do with the garden?" I was lucky enough to be able to take one of his beautiful rose bushes home with me and it is thriving in its new home. I also dug up a few rhubarb plants. We weren't sure how they were going to do, but after a few weeks little sprouts began to show--and they never slowed down. They're huge now and I am so happy to be able to bake rhubarb pies from the same plant that my grandpa used.
But, then I began racking my brain to think of other ways to use those pink stalks. I have pinned numerous rhubarb recipes on Pinterest, but I started thinking about how tasty it would be in a drink. Here's what we came up with...
Strawberry Rhubarb Whiskey Sour
You're gonna need...
4 stalks of rhubarb cut into 1 inch pieces, plus two long stalks for garnish
1 cup of strawberries
4 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp of butter or olive oil
Juice of one lemon (we used a Meyer lemon)
2 oz simple syrup
3 oz Whiskey (we used High West Double Rye)
Ice
Mint for garnish
First, cook down the rhubarb and strawberries. Place the cut pieces of rhubarb in a small pan with sugar and olive oil or butter. Cook it down until the rhubarb becomes tender. Add the strawberries and cook at a medium-low heat until it forms a jam-like texture. Set 1/2 cup of the mixture to the side, you can save the rest for another time. The rhubarb is pretty fibrous for a drink so, if want to, you can blend it up with an immersion blender or stick it in the food processor for a few seconds.
Pour the strawberry rhubarb mixture into a cocktail shaker. Add the simple syrup, lemon juice, ice, and whiskey. Shake it up. Pour into a glass and add a rhubarb stalk, strawberry slices and mint leaves for garnish.
Enjoy!
