Richmond loves festivals, street fairs and special days. One that is not as widely known but that I find quite sweet is Best Friends Day. Basically, it's a day to get together with your friends, including inviting in friends from out of town. Hadad's Lake is the typical destination, but my roommates and I decided to just throw a housewarming party. We just did burgers and hot dogs, but of course went a bit over board on the drinks (and edible forms of drinks.) We also came up with Richmond- centric names for each one!
In honor of the Watermelon Festival and every other street festival, I made Street Festival Salad (one whole watermelon cubed, 1/2 cup of chopped mint, 3 tbsp lime juice, vodka.)
My roommate also came up with several fabulous creations. Snowpocaolpyse was a vanilla rum, coconut milk and ice cream creation that I never got to sample. James River Water used berry vodka, blue pucker, fresca, and stonefruit (nectarines) in honor of our rocky river.
Luckily, thekitchn also had a post this past week about
beer pops! Richmond is the number one consumer of PBR, so I had to make the beer pops using our favorite beer. Recipe here, though I used simple syrup instead of agave because I forgot to buy it at the store.
Making 48 mini pops (using 24 cans of PBR) meant juicing 24 limes.
I also found a recipe for
Strawberry-Basil Margarita 'jello shots' from scratch. There were mixed reviews- I felt they were too boozey, some felt the texture was weird due to the strawberry puree and unflavored gelatin. I'd defintiely play around with this idea again, though.
I also made a Short Pump Smash, using whiskey and fresh peaches that was sort of a cross between sangria and a smash. I
posted the recipe separately since this post was getting so long!
Having continued my peach buying spree, I wanted to come up with a Best Friends Day recipe using the fresh fruit. I had saved a recipe for "Whiskey Peach Smash" from thekitchn but since BFD is more of a marathon than a sprint, I wanted to make the drink less boozy but keep the peach-y whiskey-y goodness. We called it "Short Pump Smash" in honor of the surburban area of Richmond. I would definitely serve this to a group of ladies who lunch in Short Pump. Here is what I came up with.
About 4 peaches cut into cubes. Place in pitcher and cover with sugar (1/4 cup or so.)
Add in some of the sparkling white grape juice and muddle.
Fill pitcher 1/3 way with whiskey, 2/3 with sparkling grape. I used Jim Bean, but any not too expensive whiskey or bourbon should work.
