Blood Orange Gin Lime Rickey

I've been looking for a number of cocktail recipes that incorporate Blood Oranges ever since Momma-San got be that bag of Blood Oranges last week. One such recipe that I found intriguing was one for a Blood Orange Gin Lime Rickey from Wearenotmartha.com website. In their post they made a batch large enouh for a pitcher. So I decided to scale it down to a single serving with a slight variation. Here is their recipe:

Blood Orange Gin Lime Rickey
Ingredients:
1 1/4 C fresh blood orange juice, plus a few slices for garnish
1/4 C fresh lime juice, plus a few slices for garnish
1 C Gin
1 C Soda water

Instructions:
1) Juice oranges (until you have a cup and 1/4 of juice... probably about 8-10 oranges).
2) Pour the juice, along with 1/4 C of lime juice into a pitcher. Then pour in the gin and top off with the soda. Add a few slices of limes and blood oranges.
3) Fill a glass with ice and pour the drink in.

(makes about 4 drinks)

Scaling down the ingredients, and making the cocktail I found that it was very light and refreshing but I found that it was somewhat tart. It was missing a small portion of sweetness. So here is how I tweaked their recipe:

Blood Orange Gin Lime Rickey
2oz Gin (I used Bombay Sapphire)
3oz Freshly Squeezed Blood Orange Juice
.5oz of Freshly Squeezed Lime Juice
.25oz of Simple Syrup
Seltzer Water

Pour juices, gin and simple syrup into a glass, add ice and top off with the seltzer water.

I have to say that I love the color that the blood orange juice gives this cocktail. Its gives it a very distinctive reddish color. Adding the simple syrup made the cocktail a bit more balanced. The simple syrup adds that little portion of sweetness that I felt the cocktail was missing. I think that a this cocktail might have another added layer of flavor is a gin such as Hendricks were to be used instead of the Bombay Sapphire. Maybe a little level of spice would also augment the cocktail with perhaps using a gin like the Bombay Sapphire East Asia.

I'll keep working on this one. Make sure to check out the Wearenotmartha.com website. Let me know what you think.

Until Then Happy Drinking,
Sisco Vanilla