Acacia: Best Lemon Drop Martini -- EVER!

When the weather gets hot, I am all about a cool cocktail to help keep things chilly. After sampling Lemon Drops throughout downtown for the past couple of months, there's no doubt that the best in town comes from Acacia on Market St.

Man oh man, do they make a winner or what?! Here's the trick, and this applies to all recipes: The fewer the ingredients, the better each one needs to be. Thus, no Sprite (yuk!) or faux-lemon juice. Your basic Lemon Drop has only three ingredients: Citrus Vodka, Freshly Squeezed Lemon Juice, and Simple Syrup. What is simple syrup? It's a mixture of equal parts sugar and water, cooked stove top just until the sugar is melted. It's a fantastic sweetener for cold beverages because you don't end up with a pile of un-dissolved sugar on the bottom of the glass. It's great for iced tea, iced coffee, or cocktails! At The Tasting Room, they even serve it in a little white pitcher when you order iced tea -- see, they know all about it there.

Back to Acacia though...When I happened by their bar a few weeks ago with some friends, the bartender whipped up the perfect Lemon Drop. She squeezed the lemon juice fresh (actual lemons were involved in the making of this drink!), and shook the vodka and a touch of simple syrup with it until it was really, really cold. Pour it into a sugar-rimmed martini glass and voila! But what really sent this baby over the top was the rock candy swizzle stick. Holy moley, that was good! It was the perfect touch to the perfect summer drink; just like grown-up lemonade. I'm stopping by this weekend to see if they can do it again -- woo hoo!