Blushing Apple Juleps

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When was the last time you sat outside and sipped on something? When I was little, that was what folks did during their downtime. They’d drag a chair underneath a shade tree, pour a big glass of iced tea or lemonade and sit and sip as they visited.

You used to love company showing up because that meant you had an excuse to take a break from work! This weekend with all of the Derby talk, I got to thinking of apple juleps and how much fun my family has sitting and chatting on the patio so I mixed us up a batch of these blushing ones and my kids were thrilled. This is one of their favorite fruity drinks and I usually make a double batch for us to sip on for a few days. Mixing these delicious concoctions up is as simple as pouring the juice in and stirring, so I do hope you get to try them soon!

P.S. Unlike traditional juleps, these are alcohol free and family friendly 🙂

You’ll need: Lemon Juice, Pineapple Juice, Apple Juice, and a bit or Orange Juice

The orange juice is in a measuring cup because it was from frozen concentrate and my pretty pitcher was being used for this tutorial.

If anyone talks to the executives at Dole today, can you tell them that this pineapple juice container is completely ridiculous, please? Something with a resealable lid would be nice. I’ve personally never downed two quarts of pineapple juice in one sitting but maybe that’s just me. Maybe the ridiculous container is part of their marketing plan. “If we refuse to package pineapple juice like every other conceivable type of juice on the aisle, if we withhold the convenience of a resealable bottle, maybe people will feel compelled to drink it all at once! Maybe a huge pineapple juice addiction will erupt! Maybe they’ll feed it to their babies to get them addicted, too! We’ll be rich! Rich, I tell ya!”

See? I uncover evil plots every day. When you start seeing news reports on rampant pineapple juice addiction you can just scoff and smugly say “Pfft, Christy totally said that was gonna happen.”

This is what is going to make our juleps blush, a jar of maraschino cherries.

Who decided how to spell that, anyway?

So we’re going to use a bit of the cherry juice and also put a cherry or two in each glass….and then I’ll pretty much eat the rest as I’m going about uploading these pictures.

Mix all of your juices together in a pitcher. 

Add 3-4 Tablespoons of Cherry Juice to make it blush, then stir.

I blush easily. Very easily. It has something to do with the fact that I have the complexion of Casper, as my friend Tim says.

Place this in a refrigerator and chill until ready to serve.

Some folks (I know you’re out there) were wondering what that picture looked like that you’ve seen in the background of my last two photos so here is a close up. It’s made by Dayspring.

And while we’re detouring… 

So this weekend while making the juleps, I remembered that our PPB (Poor Pitiful Bachelor who desperately needs someone to cook for him, to hear him tell it) had requested something fruity, citrusy, and cold in the form of a pie. Katy Rose just loves and adores PPB so she and I made two pies, one for us and one for him. Katy Rose made his. Can you guess which one it is?

These are Mandarin Orange Pies and you can click here for the recipe if you’d like it. It kind of has a lemon meringue pie taste to it, with bits of pineapple and mandarin oranges.

Ready for the finale?

Serve over ice.

VOILA! Blushing Apple Juleps!

AND I got to put those two years of high school french to good use! You can only imagine how very useful french is in North Alabama, a clear testimony to my wisdom as a teenager.

I’m not usually one to garnish but the sprig of green that you see in this photo is Lemon Balm, part of the mint family. I planted Lemon Balm three years ago and it pretty much refuses to die. It has grown into a huge bush, won’t even die back in the winter, and thrives despite my complete and total neglect. I think that is what it takes to be a fresh herb that makes it into one of my tutorials :).

If you pick a leaf of lemon balm and rub it between your fingers, it smells like lemon drops. I like to take three or four leaves and drop them in my tea as it’s cooking (I “cook” tea in a pot, we’ve never called it “brewing”), right along with the tea bags. I discard them with the bags before I mix it up and my tea has just the slightest hint of lemon to it – delicious! Now go make juleps!

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“Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go;

they merely determine where you start.”

– Nido Qubein

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