Purple Honey: How To Make The Most Of Its Allure In Mocktails
Purple honey or lavender honey is a very rare find prepared by bees who seek pollen from wildflowers or wild oreganos containing a coloured pigment which gives this syrupy nectar its distinct hue. Over time, purple honey has garnered quite a bit of fame, especially when a picture of a jar containing this coloured liquid went viral on the internet.
Undoubtedly, purple honey has sparked the interest and curiosity of many mixologists who dabble with different ingredients to prepare some curiously delicious mixes. And many recipes can be devised that use this nectar by following simple methods that will enable you to employ purple honey in cocktails in measured quantities, to ensure one bottle lasts you for a long time!
And this holds true for many mocktail recipes too, that is drinks that are prepared sans alcohol but with the inclusion of other fruity and citrusy mixes. Mocktail ought never to be underestimated, for these are drinks which pack a lot of zesty notes and a bit of punch making them sought after options more so for those who are choosing to cut down their alcohol intake and opt for more conscious choices of refreshment.
Read on below to know more about some of the ways in which you can add purple honey into your non-alcoholic mixes to elevate your mocktail game:
Mix With Lime Juice
Purple honey is mildly sweet and slightly delicate to taste, meaning it can be mixed with myriad flavours without the fear of overpowering the whole drink. One of the ways to incorporate it into mocktails then is to mix it with a dash of freshly squeezed lime juice. When you infuse fruity mocktails with lime to pack its citrus notes and zesty kick into the drink, you can pour into it a couple of tablespoons of this purple honey too, so it integrates into the mix in a balanced proportion without having the need to stir it in separately.
Fruit Juice Infusions
As you would with lime juice, you can also infuse your fruit juices with purple honey to give them a slightly dense and syrupy texture even before you bring them together with other ingredients in the preparation of a mocktail. Use freshly squeezed orange, watermelon or grapefruit juices for this infusion so that the honey spreads uniformly through the sweet and sour extracts and mixes with their colours to create inviting hues. This infusion can then be added to the final mocktail recipe to extract its sweet and tangy qualities.
A Sugar Substitute
Not only does purple honey infuse your drinks with its inviting colour, it is also an excellent substitute to simple syrup or any added sugars that go into the mocktail mix. You can actually eliminate packed juices to instead choose freshly squeezed orange or pineapple juices and add purple honey to them for a hint of sweetness. This way, you can also do away with simple syrup because the delicate, syrupy texture of the honey will provide the non-alcoholic mix with all the sweetness the recipe demands.
As A Garnish
When you stumble upon a bottle of purple or lavender honey but want to use it sparingly, you can simply use it as a garnish instead of a primary ingredient in your mocktail mix. Non-alcoholic drinks are generally very boldly flavoured because they contain tons of fruit juices and flavoured carbonated mixes so all you need to augment their complexity is a vibrant garnish. Purple honey can be ideal for such citrus and fruit-forward drinks. Just pour a tablespoon on top of your foamy drink and let it spread through the glass.
Muddle With Mint
Along with lime juice, you can also mix purple honey with other vibrant ingredients like refreshing mint sprigs which will pair well with its sweet notes. The spicy and rejuvenating spike in mint coupled with the dense purple honey will bring about a layered and complex finish into any non-alcoholic mix because of their contrary flavours. This sweet and revitalising blend is excellent for flavouring virgin mojitos or non-alcoholic spritzers.
