Lemon & Blackcurrant Fizz Cocktail

A gorgeously refreshing, super simple cocktail you can whip up in no time at home. No fancy list of ingredients; blackcurrant cordial and fresh lemon juice are the main players here, giving our cocktail a lovely sweet and tart flavour.

Cocktails seem to be all the rage lately. That’s fine by me! I always love the look of them, and just seeing someone drinking pink liquid from a martini glass has me wanting one too. One day, after seeing a particularly amazing looking drink on a blog, I wondered why I didn’t try making cocktails myself. The truth is I hardly ever drink anything other than the occasional beer at home, and well-stocked is not what you would call my drinks’ supply. A bottle of whiskey that was a gift and is only ever brought out for that same person who gave it to us, a half bottle of bourbon leftover from making vanilla essence, some brandy for cooking and some vodka for an experiment I never got round to. That’s about the extent of it. None of the weird and wonderful ingredients found on many of the aforementioned, amazing looking, cocktail recipe lists. As it turns out, you can make a pretty mean cocktail without all that. All you need is a base, like vodka, and some imagination (or the internet).

A few days before this pondering about cocktails took place, the Mister had impulse-bought a bottle of sour cherry cordial from the supermarket. It’s a very traditional drink here in Greece, really sugary and sweet. I thought it would be a good ingredient for a vodka based drink. A quick look on Pinterest and I came up with the idea I would base my cocktail on. It worked really well, and I have to confess that I’ve enjoyed a couple of them since, usually while watching girlie tv programmes. For this reason the cocktail had to be in a martini glass.

I soon realised however that it would be a tricky recipe to share with you guys here on the English pages. I’m sure there are plenty of stores with Greek products near you, but I’d be quite impressed if they had vyssinada (sour cherry cordial). By all means check with them, but if you don’t find it, I have a fabulous alternative. Blackcurrant cordial! Almost as sweet as the Greek stuff, and just as gorgeous in taste. It’s quite funny actually, because the only reason I was able to find blackcurrant cordial here (it’s not generally available) was because a well-known supermarket chain had a “British week” on recently. So I am able to share two equally delicious versions of this cocktail, based on ingredients easiest for you all to find.

By all means play around with the quantities to suit your taste. This is a particularly light cocktail, so you might want to up the vodka content! You can also make it more sour or sweet by adjusting the cordial and lemon juice.