Saltwater Breeze

 The saltwater breeze cocktail is inspired by this Bath and Body Works fragrance:

 

About the fragrance

 I purchased this fragrance in 2022 based on reviews saying that it was similar to Magic in the Air (subject of a previous post) and Gingham, both of which I liked. It is currently available online as a wallflower fragrance plugin.

The scent notes listed for this fragrance are:

Fresh linen

Violet leaves

Water blossom

White musk

Designing the cocktail

I used club soda as the mixer to account for the watery essence. For the violet note, I used violet syrup from this floral elixir syrup set from Uncommon Goods. I also added dried sweet violet blossoms (they're edible) from the Etsy shop Epic of Nature. For the water blossom note, I used the lily petals I used for Cashmere Glow as a substitute for water lilies, since the flowers on the packaging resembled water lilies but water lilies themselves are not edible. For the musk note, I used white rum. I could not figure out how to replicate the fresh linen note, so I left it out.

Recipe

2 oz white rum

½ oz violet syrup

6 oz club soda

Lily petals

Violet petals

Place two ice cubes in a glass. Add white rum and violet syrup. Pour in club soda. Garnish with lily and violet petals. For a non-alcoholic version, omit the white rum.

The finished cocktail

 This cocktail was not my favorite. Rum was by far the strongest flavor. The packaging for the floral syrups recommended only adding 1/2 oz to a drink, but in this case that was not enough to balance the rum flavor. However, this could easily be remedied by adding more violet syrup. The dried flowers were the most interesting part of the drink. The dried sweet violet blossoms had a licorice-like taste, while the lilies had an almost spicy flavor. The violet syrup gave the drink a pale purple tint, making it visually pleasing even if it was not tasty. I would recommend this cocktail to people who enjoy rum shots or strong rum drinks.