Happy Hour in the Herb Garden

How to Grow your own Herbs for garden-fresh Cocktails.

Waking up on Monday morning, slumped over my kitchen table, bleary-eyed and hungover, is never a good start to the week. Throw in one sniggering husband posting the image on Instagram, and my shame is complete. Of course, that sniggering husband is completely to blame for my latest disgrace. He headed off for his mate’s stag weekend, leaving his good lady wife unsupervised. A recipe for disaster if ever I heard one.

My weekend alone started out innocently enough. With my trusty iPad for company, I turned my attention to the herb garden I was planning. I was just getting stuck into researching the best herbs to grow at home when I stumbled upon a site devoted entirely to growing herbs for cocktails. Entirely. For. Cocktails. Now that’s my kind of site. 

Before long, my plans for a simple kitchen herb garden had morphed into plans for a fully blown cocktail herb bar where I could delight and amaze my family and friends with rainbow-coloured cocktails infused and garnished with the very herbs and flowers from my garden. And as we know, any good plan has to be tested. So before dashing off to the garden centre to buy up all their herb pots, I rang round my girlfriends to see who fancied abandoning their family and joining me for an impromptu herb-testing happy hour on Sunday afternoon. Purely for research purposes. Honest.

You see, dear reader, while I have indeed got hooked on ‘grow your own’, I’ve never felt the need to give up my fun-loving personality just because I enjoy growing stuff. A conviction clearly demonstrated last Sunday. The shaker shook. The herbs were muddled. The cocktails flowed. The Bose boomed. My friends and I danced. The neighbours complained. And let’s just say that, come Monday morning, Instagram got a real corker of a picture.

So, to all you readers who fancy having a go at grow-your-own, remember, you definitely don’t have to give up fun afternoons with friends just because you’re into growing your own fruit and vegetables. Just merge your two passions. Growing your very own cocktail herb bar is a great project and can be as big or as small as you want. If you’re short on space, herbs grow very well in pots, so windowsills, balconies and patios are perfect spots. Just add bubbly – Lady Muck style.

You could start out with sweet basil, mint and rosemary, which are all great herbs for cocktails and easy to grow. Sweet basil is perfect for a Sweet Sunrise cocktail (tequila, sweet vermouth, orange juice, lime juice and sweet basil leaves). Basil will grow happily in a pot from early spring to mid-autumn. It loves a bright, warm, sheltered spot, but do try and keep it out of direct midday sun so its delicate leaves don’t burn. Garden centres are my go-to for basil plants, but remember that plants will probably need ‘hardening off’ if you want to start growing them on outdoors before the full warmth of summer. Just stand your pots outside during the day then bring them back in at night for about two weeks. Job done.

Next up, mint, which is fabulous in mojitos and the hero in one of my all-time favourite cocktails, The Lady (Champagne, cranberry juice and mint leaves). As mint can be invasive, I prefer to grow it in pots filled with free-draining, soil-based compost. Mint likes to be in light shade and well watered – much like Lord Muck when he’s down the pub on a warm, summer evening. In late summer, when it has finished flowering, cut back its leaves to just above soil level and give it a high-nitrogen feed to encourage a new batch of leaves for autumn picking.

Last but by no means least: rosemary. Super lovely in a Gin Fizz Mocktail (sparkling water, juniper syrup, lime juice, lime, ice cubes and muddled rosemary leaves). Like me, rosemary likes a bit of sunbathing so a warm, sheltered spot is ideal. And remember, it hates being overwatered.

Right, must dash. I need to crack Lord Muck’s Instagram password and delete that hangover photo before it goes viral.

Or at least, before my mother-in-law spots it…