It Started With a Garden.

The first home I ever owned was a 2-bedroom townhome-style condominium with no personal outdoor space aside from a small concrete-paved patio. I filled that patio with potted plants: rosemary and basil and parsley and thyme and chives and pansies and geraniums and daisies and lantana. When my dad would visit, he’d refer to it as “the botanical garden.”

Eventually, my husband (Love you, Seth!) and I moved to our “forever home” in a charming little neighborhood lining the Chesapeake Bay in Norfolk, Virginia. I lost my botanical garden, but I gained a whole backyard. And I traipsed all the plants that would survive the transplant across town to our new home.

With Seth’s help, I set up two raised garden beds for growing vegetables in the summer. I planted some mint that quickly spread like wildfire in a semi-shaded plot of dirt behind our garage. I inherited perennial bloomers from the yards of my neighbors and my mom.

Every year, I complain about how much yard work I have to do. But I’ll grumble about pulling and digging and planting and weeding and sweating all day long and still never willingly give up the taste of hand-picked caprese or the smell of freshly-cut rosemary or the clusters of colorful blooms from those inherited perennials.

A few years after settling into our home, while visiting Seth’s family for the holidays, we met up with one of Seth’s childhood friends, who, unbeknownst to any of us at the time, spurred my interest in homemade cocktails to such an extreme measure that I eventually transformed my living room into a home bar. We had met up for beers at a laidback pub-type spot that seemed too cool for a town in Alabama. Conversation ensued. And as Seth and I gushed about some of our favorite beer styles and beer brands, his friend mentioned a word that, at the time, was all but foreign to us: “cocktails.”

“Oh, I don’t really know anything about cocktails. They’re just so expensive. That’s why I stick to beer,” I chuckled awkwardly.

“If they’re too expensive, why don’t you try making them at home?” Seth’s friend prodded.

My obvious response followed: “Well that just sounds like a lot of work!”

But, I wasn’t expecting what came next.

“Do you garden?” he asked, to which my response was an undeniable “Yes.”

“A daiquiri only requires three ingredients: rum, fresh lime juice, and simple syrup, which you make by combining sugar and water on a stove top. And, depending on what you have in your garden, you can add ingredients to make flavored syrups.”

Only three ingredients?! And a way to put my surplus of summer herbs to use?! Count me in.

That spring, after a productive annual outing to a pick-your-own-strawberries farm, I made strawberry juice and strawberry simple syrup and put them both together with vodka to make a strawberry martini.

I started buying lemons and limes and sometimes oranges at the grocery store.

I made a daiquiri with honey rum and a homemade basil simple syrup.

I bought a leather-wrapped shaker during a Father’s Day sale. (I later replaced that shaker with a more traditional 2-tin Boston shaker, but I keep my OG for sentimental reasons.)

I quite literally tiptoed my way into exploring the wild and wonderful world of bourbon by making mint juleps that evolved over time from relying heavily on syrup to relying heavily on quality spirits.

I drooled over cocktail photos on Instagram.

I scoured through articles on the internet about clarified milk punch and fat-washing and fruit infusions and directional freezing.

I started using my camera more.

I started drawing inspiration from favorite Star Wars characters and story lines for homemade cocktails.

And now I’m that person with a “Drinkstagram” account who goes antiquing for unique glassware to store in the home bar that is my living room and who torches rosemary sprigs cut from my backyard to garnish a cocktail and who grows lavender only to throw it in a bottle of gin and “see what happens.”

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

–Allison