Strawberry Basil Vodka Lemonade

I have been in looove with herby vodka drinks this summer. In addition to the Rosemary Vodka Lemonade drink I posted about earlier, I worked up this Strawberry Basil Lemonade (that I found on Pinterest) that tastes best if you add vodka!

I can never manage to actually follow directions, so here are my modifications. I cooked the strawberries and basil according to the recipe.

After I cook it and strain it, I put the syrup in this really cute glass bottle from Ikea (shown here holding two batches of the syrup).  After it's in the bottle, I added a cutting from my basil plant. I wanted something about as tall as the bottle. I leave the basil in the syrup when I refrigerate it. So far it has kept well for at least 4 days (I haven't managed to keep it around longer than that).

The reason I chose a large cutting of basil is that I wanted to be able to pull it out of the bottle should it start to turn brown or once the syrup is gone and I need to wash the bottle. I can't imagine the insanity of trying to get wet basil leaves out of that small spout!

So back to making the drink:

put about 4 cubes of ice in a glass
add 1-2 shots of vodka
pour the glass about half full (depending on how sweet you want it) of the strawberry basil syrup
top with San Pellegrino Limonata
add a sprig of basil and enjoy!

Here is a photo of the actual drink at a cocktail party I recently hosted at home. Once you let it sit a few minutes, the strawberry syrup sinks to the bottom of the glass and the San Pellegrino Limonata stays on top. It's a very pretty summer drink.

So, not to forget the cocktail party and all the fun I had with the menu, here are all the tasty goods:

Those are my famous strawberry cupcakes with strawberry icing. In the middle are coconut pecan cookies from the bakery section of Harris Teeter. I made sandwich cookies out of them with a little help from some Nutella!

That's my homemade Carolina style pulled pork bbq!

Of course we also had bacon jam!!!

We had a few items for sampling the bacon jam. I made fried green tomatoes (on top), and also had bruschetta (bottom of plate stand) and then I added a mushroom flatbread pizza from Trader Joe's that paired perfectly with the bacon jam!

The ladies having lots of fun jewelry shopping!