Natural Cocktails That Will Make Your Summer Cooler

Rim a tall tumbler with lime juice and salt. Fill it with crushed or cracked ice. Add the mezcal, add the fresh lime juice, toss in a pinch of salt, fill with grapefruit juice and top with grapefruit or club soda.

Muddle the half-inch cucumber chunk in the bottom of the glass with a lemon slice. Fill with cracked ice. Add the Pimm’s No. 1, gin, and lemon juice, and fill to the top with ginger ale. Stir gently and serve.

Serve in coupe glasses or a Nick and Nora in a pinch.

Add everything except the gin to a blender and … blend.

GATHER YOUR GUESTS to observe this cool effect:

Scoop about a half a cup of the frozen slush into the center of a glass, then place a citrus wheel into it.

With your guests watching closely, pour a jigger of gin carefully into the space between the glass and the slush.

Empress 1908 is made with butterfly pea blossoms (an ingredient in the Empress Hotel’s famous tea, which is where the gin gets its name). It comes out of the bottle a stunning indigo blue (almost purple), but as soon as it touches citrus, it transforms into a bright pink.

Granita:

• About 4 cups of pureed seedless watermelon
• A pinch of Cajun spice mix
• Splash of lime juice

Blend all the ingredients together, pour into a metal baking pan. Freeze for about 30 to 45 minutes, until the mixture has just started to freeze. Use a fork to scrape the partially frozen mixture into coarse flakes. Return to the freezer. Repeat two or three times then freeze for another four hours.

Alabama Sunset:

• Rim margarita glass with lime and salt or sugar
• Add mezcal to the glass
• Fill with the granita
• Garnish with a thin slice of lime, wedged into the granita

Age for 30 days in a barrel. Combine all in a mixing glass, add ice, stir. Strain into Nick and Nora glass, garnish with dried Thai Banana and Lime Peel.