Thirsty Thursdays: Fresh Cherry Champagne Mojitos

Hello hello! It’s me. Interrupting your regularly scheduled EuroTrip 2014 recap to bring you a new installment of Thirsty Thursday! Are you excited??? I’m excited. It’s been two whole weeks since my last Thirsty Thursday post! Like I said before, I did actually make a cocktail for last week, but there was that whole SD card/camera cable snafu, and I couldn’t figure out how to get my pictures off my camera, and before I knew it Thursday had gone by without a post. Also, the lighting was bad and I was super rushed because I was thirsty and the drink (a frozen one!) was melting really fast on the balcony, so the pictures were terrible. Like, real bad. Super blurry, terrible staging, wrong color balance…ugh! Y’all don’t need to see that. But the drinks were really delicious though, so I’ll have to make a repeat batch soon and try my luck with pictures again. I’ll keep you posted.

But OK, back to today’s recipe, which is inspired by my usual summer obsession with cherries, my love of mojitos, and the fortuitous discovery of a bottle of champagne in the back of the fridge just when I was feeling bummed that we were out of club soda. I had no game plan going into the making of this cocktail – I just started muddling cherries/mint and measuring out half shots of the usual mojito ingredients. The end result was a bright, fizzy, fruity-sweet concoction packed with yummy cherry flavor. It actually reminded me a lot of the cherry mojito I like to order at our favorite cajun seafood place. A little less sweet, actually – the restaurant version comes with a stick of sugar cane and is sometimes tooth-achingly sugary (I love it though). My version is a little drier, possibly because champagne is sorta dry-ish and less sweet than tonic water/club soda. Maybe?

Can I be honest with y’all for a second? I’m super tired right now. I went to the gym for the first time in probably too long and my trainer made me lift a whole bunch of weights. Then I came home and took a hot bath to soothe my poor aching muscles. And, of course, I gulped down a few of these mojitos with dinner. So…between the exercise, the heat from my bath, and the boozy cocktails, I’m feeling super sleepy! I’m currently sprawled on my couch, feet in Dan’s lap, eyes at half-mast, typing maybe three words per minute. Which means this post is probably going to come to abrupt end…soon.

Before I conk out, let me just summarize this post for you – cherries are delicious, champagne is delightful, mojitos are great, and a cocktail that combines all of them = magic. Please try it, ASAP.

And speaking of magically delicious drinks, here are some of my favorites this week:

• I love everything The Kitchen McCabe makes, and this strawberry-coconut lemonade is no exception.
• When did lavendar become a commonly accepted flavor in food/drinks? I feel like I missed the memo. These two lemonades might be a great place to start, though.
• Grape daiquiris! It’s so rare to see grapes in drinks (unless we’re talking about wine, in which case it’s all grape), and this looks fabulous.
• As a matter of principle, I’m on board with any drink that has the word “smash” in the title, but I feel like this blueberry lime version would actually be amazing in reality.
• Just looking at this wellness elixir makes me feel healthier.
• Everyone should drink this citrus punch every day, all summer long.
• This peach sangria, too – lets drink this every day.
• Someone get me my blender…I need to make some strawberry-watermelon coolers ASAP.
• Margarita + punch = sign me up.