By: Tom Benoit Photos courtesy of The Blue Clove
During COVID, enjoying a good cocktail from your favorite restaurant was close to impossible. Things were made easier for restaurants when Texas passed the take-home drink law which allowed restaurants to include alcoholic beverages in to-go orders.
Restaurants, such as The Blue Clove Seafood Bar and Grill, jumped on the bandwagon.
“During COVID, we played around with recipes while it was permitted to make take-home drinks,” according to a representative from The Blue Clove.
Although take-home drinks were permitted, the representative said there were some challenges. “Packaging was always an issue in [our] mind,” the representative explained, “It [the drink] has to be ‘sealed’ with a tamper-proof seal. I would see other places put tape over the straw holes or use resealable packages.”
“I originally wanted to can the cocktails to make sure it was truly tamper proof, but then went to a local juicer and saw the bottles they used and that’s when I decided I wanted to use the plastic bottles,” they said.
The goal of the batches is to be updated seasonally. For the summer, the cocktails are cucumber fresca, minty melon marg, and Blue Clove lemonade.
The cucumber fresca is made with puréed cucumber, Dripping Springs vodka, Chareau lime juice, simple syrup, water, citric acid, and salt.
The minty melon marg’s ingredients are El Jimador Blanco tequila, puréed watermelon, mint infused water, simple syrup, Naranja liqueur, lime juice, citric acid, and salt.
The Blue Clove Lemonade contains Seersucker gin, butterfly pea flower infused water for color, simple syrup, St. Germaine, lemon juice, citric acid, and salt.
The ingredients are used in an effort to keep everything natural and with as little preservatives as possible. “We wanted to keep with the fresh ingredients that we use in our cocktails in the restaurant in the take home cocktails.” they said.
The representative also added that the next step would be to team up with the third party delivery services so they can be delivered with food.
Each bottle contains two cocktails ready to be served over ice. Each cocktail contains 11-12% ABV, must be purchased with food, and has a shelf life of about a week. The cocktails are best served over ice, and certainly pair well with the South Texas heat.
