Farm-fresh cocktails anyone?

We have an awesome patch of roadside blackberries about a mile from our house and I plan each year to hit them up in early July for my annual jam haul. We make out like bandits, and I spend the days to follow coming up with delicious new uses.

Well, this year I was all set to make jam and then inadvertently got distracted by blackberry cocktail recipes. I proceeded to spend the afternoon taste testing boozy drinks and my entire canning plan went out the window.

The good news is that I’ve walked away with a new favorite summer cocktail: blackberry bourbon smashes.

To make this process as labor-intensive as possible (eyeroll), I crush my berries in a sieve to extract a jar of pure, bliss-inducing blackberry juice. If you don’t want to do that, you can muddle them instead. Here we go:

• 2 oz bourbon

• 1/2 oz lemon juice

• 6–7 large mint leaves, smacked or muddled

• 6 muddled blackberries or 1/2 oz berry juice

• 1/2 oz simple syrup (1 tablespoon of sugar will do)

• 1 oz soda water

• cup of ice

To a cocktail shaker of crushed ice, add everything but the soda water. Shake vigorously and pour over ice in a rocks glass. Top with soda water and adjust ingredients to meet your taste.