Fresh Amalfi Lemon

 The Fresh Amalfi lemon cocktail is inspired by this Bath and Body Works fragrance:

About the fragrance

I purchased a wallflower fragrance in this scent for my bathroom in 2024. I liked it a lot, so I purchased it again along with the hand soap. It is currently available online as a single wick candle, wallflower fragrance, hand sanitizer, and cleansing gel hand soap, as well as part of the Coastal Getaway hand sanitizer set along with several other fragrances, but not as a gentle foaming hand soap as it is shown in the picture.

The scent notes listed for this fragrance are:

Lemon leaves

Chilled spearmint

Cedarwood citrus

Designing the cocktail

I used lemonade for the mixer to replicate the first note. I used equal parts Grand Marnier and lime vodka for the additional citrus note, although I was not able to replicate cedarwood. For the spearmint note, I made a mint simple syrup by boiling equal parts sugar and water and adding mint extract. I also added dried mint leaves as a garnish.

Recipe

1 oz Grand Marnier or other orange liqueur

1 oz lime vodka

1 oz mint simple syrup

6 oz lemonade

Fresh or dried mint

Combine orange liqueur, lime vodka, mint simple syrup, and lemonade in a cocktail shaker along with two ice cubes. Shake several times and pour the resulting mixture into a glass. Garnish with mint. For a non-alcoholic version, omit the orange liqueur and lime vodka and add orange simple syrup and lime simple syrup.

The finished cocktail

 I enjoyed this cocktail. It was fruity and refreshing, making it appropriate for summer. My parents are visiting this weekend, and my mom tried the cocktail and enjoyed it too, although I left the lime vodka out of hers since she does not care for lime flavor. The lemon and mint were the strongest flavors, while the orange and lime were harder to detect. The mint leaves added an additional visual element. My main complaint about this cocktail was that the mint flavor was too strong and overpowered the other flavors. People who do not like a strong mint note may want to reduce the mint syrup by half. I would recommend this cocktail to anyone who enjoys mint lemonade.