Shattered Shoulder

It had to happen sooner or later: I broke my first bones. After a lifelong policy of skeletal integrity, I ran my bicycle into a temporary roadsign in the bike lane, fell and broke my collarbone and a rib. So, typing is a bit slow - of course, it was my left arm, and I'm a lefty. But I still wanted to blog about what I've been drinking lately.

I know, don't mix Vicodin and alcohol - But I can alternate, right?

It was a combination of things: a friend gave me some homemade lemon syrup, and I got the urge to drink gin cocktails. So I made a variety of drinks based on Tanqueray (on sale at a very nice price), lemon or lime juice and lemon syrup. As I understand it, gin, lemon and syrup is a gin sour, with lime, it is a gimlet (Rose's lime is popular but wrong), and with soda, it's a rickey. I made all of these, plus the Fitzgerald: a gin sour with some bitters (homemade grapefruit bitters in my case).

But the real fun came when I got a bag of frozen raspberries for a fruit salad. Add 5-6 to a gin sour, and you've got a lovely drink. Of course, you can do the same to a margarita or daiquiri if you prefer tequila or rum to gin, but I think the sweet/tart berries match the bitter/botanical gin very nicely. The color is lovely too. Just for fun, I'll call this raspberry gin sour the Shattered Shoulder:

2 oz. gin
1 oz. lemon (or lime) juice
1 oz. simple syrup (or lemon syrup, or even triple sec)
5-6 frozen raspberries (or fresh, why not?)

Shake hard with ice to muddle up the berries. Serve in rocks glass.