BLL Pregame: The Monterey Mint

4 Pretzels

So, Big Little Lies is a dope show. If you aren’t watching it, you’re either a fool or you don’t have HBO and that’s totally understandable. I like to do a little pregaming before the big show and, if Sundays aren’t for day drinking, no one told me, so here we are. This week, I’m saluting all the ladies and some of the gents with a little cocktail I like to call the Monterey Mint.

Here’s what you need:

Gin

Soda water

Mint simple syrup

Lime

Okay, so, simple syrup is, well, simple. You take equal parts sugar and water, put it in a pot, and heat it until all the sugar dissolves. Keep an eye on it because, if it goes too long, it will become caramel. Which, hey, nothing wrong with that. To infuse with mint, you dice up fresh mint as finely as possible to release all that minty goodness and add it to the pot before you start heating it up. Swirl it around a bunch. Seven clockwise rotations, followed by three counter – I’m just kidding; this is not Harry Potter, y’all, swirl as haphazardly as you’d like. When it’s ready, strain it and pour it into a fancy bottle or, in my case, an old Grolsch bottle. Let it cool because, otherwise, it will melt your ice and water down your drink.

I’m more of an eyeballer when it comes to making drinks. If you want actual measurements, you can find a recipe from a qualified person here. Geoffrey Zakarian is a trained chef and also dapper as hell. You can trust him. Or you can put your trust in me. I may not be an expert, but I’m pretty good at maintaining a low level buzz. So, here’s what I do. Add some ice cubes to my glass, pour in what I estimate to be about two ounces of gin, fill the glass with club soda – I use generic brands because I have champagne taste, but a lemonade budget and, with enough gin, they taste the same anyway – and finish off with a splash of the mint syrup and a squeeze of lime. Now, if you want a sweeter, mintier drink, adjust your measurements. I’m not a huge fan of sugar, so I go light on the syrup. It’s your drink, do what you want with it. So minty. So refreshing.

Now you’re ready to sit back and watch Meryl Streep be unnecessarily mean to Reese Witherspoon!

I’ll be back tomorrow with an episode two recap. Are you already behind? Get it together and read last week’s recap here.

Okay, byyyyeeeee!

Smoky Lynx