Lush Life: A Sugar Snap Pea Cocktail!
When most people see the first sugar snap peas pop up in their garden, they start salivating over salads or side dishes. But Bart Mallard, bartender at Acre restaurant in Memphis, Tennessee, imagines his peas floating in a nice gin and tonic.
"The sugar snap pea is the first and sweetest vegetable from our spring garden," Mallard says. "One day I picked one up and bit down on it. It was as sweet as a ripe peach. I instantly thought of it as the perfect complement to the popular Southern cocktail, the gin and tonic."
Mallard uses a juicer to puree his peas, and prefers that some of the fiber remain in the juice. "If you don't have a juicer, you can cut up the vegetables and muddle them in a shaker with just a bit of ice," he says. "Then add the other ingredients."
The Garden Tonic
1.5 ounces gin
1 ounce sugar snap peas, juiced
Dash of fresh lime
Dash of simple syrup
Fill shaker glass with ice. Add the ingredients above, then shake and pour into a rocks glass. Fill to the top with tonic water and garnish with a whole sugar snap pea.