Hello once again, and happy Friday!

Don’t you hate it when vacation seems to fly by all too fast? That was me last week in St. Martin. It was my second time to the island, and it definitely won’t be the last. We stayed on the French side (the island is divided between the French and the Dutch), and as you would expect, the food and drink on that side of the island is impeccable. One of the places we had dinner was Ocean 82, right on the water in Grand Case. Along with my excellent lobster Thermador

I had an excellent cocktail, called the Cucumber cooler:

I knew I needed more if this in my life this summer so I snapped a pic of the ingredients and proceeded to try and re-create here. I just guessed on the proportions of each ingredient:

1.5 oz. Hendricks

1 oz. lemon juice

.5 oz simple

2 cucumbers muddled. plus 1 for garnish

4 or 5 mint leaves, plus 3 for garnish

Ginger ale to top

Add mint, cucumber slices, lemon juice and simple syrup to a cocktail shaker and muddle. Add gin and ice. Shake until cold. Fine strain into either a rocks glass or stemmed glass with ice. Garnish with mint sprig and cucumber slice.

Visually, I think I nailed it. It looks almost exactly like the one I had on vacation. Minus the glassware, but I think a rocks glass with one giant ice cube will suffice.

Aroma is very clan, with slight hints of ginger from the topper. The fresh mint garnish doesnt give off a ton of aroma, but I attribute that to me not giving it a good clap to release some of the oils. The cucumber is mostly lost, but then again cucumber slices don’t really have much of an aroma do they?

The sip is very nice. It’s bright, crisp and very refreshing. It starts out mostly with the ginger ale up front, but only the mouth feel. The flavor is mostly hidden, but it really shines through with the carbonation. After that I get a nice combination of lemon and mint along with a slight touch of cucumber. Mostly from the muddled slices and garnish, but I do pick up some distinct gin notes in there. They are very subtle, but you do get some reminders that this is a cocktail, so you need to be careful downing these in the heat and humidity. The very subtle gin flavors really work well here. Gin can be fickle in the heat (outside a classic gin and tonic of course) so the gin being a background flavor really solidifies this as a summer cooler in my opinion. The finish is a nice mixture of the flavors. Nothing too sweet or sour. Perfectly balanced flavor palate to finish.

Without knowing the proportions, I think I nailed this. It tastes just like the once I had at Ocean 82, and will be making more of these this summer. Especially when I think about going back to St. Martin. Seriously, if you have a chance to, go there. If not, sip on this creation from one of the best restaurants on the and pretend you’re beachside.

(Banner image courtesy Matthew Tetrault Photography)