A Cocktail From Our Freezer (& Our Community!)

The freezer is a good place to store the things you want to have around for a really long time. Six months, eight months, one year later, you'll be thankful for your advanced planning. And that the stuff is still in good shape.

Like yesterday, when we decided it was finally time to break open the bottle of pomelocello Hardlikearmour had made from pomelo zest, Everclear, and sugar and sent us from Portland precisely one year ago. (Make a batch of your own with her instructions in the comments section here). We thanked the peas for hiding this gold. And got to making a cocktail.

The incredibly perfumey, syrupy liquid would go nice with gin, we figured. But not just any gin: We have been hoarding spirits from fiveandspice, who sent us good stuff from her own distillery in Duluth. Breaking into the homemade pomelocello seemed finally like an occasion momentous enough to open the gin.

So spruce gin from Vikre Distillery and pomelocello from hardlikearmour’s kitchen met some sparkling water, some chopped and squeezed limes, and a swirl of a wooden spoon.

We think it tasted really good—a mellow citrus from the pomelocello, a zesty bit from the limes, and then a fizz from the sparkling water. Spritzy but not faint. And made with TLC from two users who have made Food52 what it is today: Hardlikearmour has uploaded almost 200 recipes, and fiveandspice has been writing about booze and breakfast on the site for two years now.

All I hope is they forgive my 6 P.M., one cocktail down, iPhone photo of this drink—the Hard Like Fiveandspice.