Cocktail Gardens: Grow Your Own Fresh Ingredients for Signature Drinks

Raise the Bar with Garden-Fresh Ingredients

Designed for a 2x8 bed, this Cocktail Garden includes herbs and plants for custom cocktails: flavorful herbs, miniature strawberries, and cherry tomatoes. Get details in our free Kitchen Garden Planner with 24+ plans.

CHEERS! Drinks made with just-picked herbs, fruit, and vegetables as flavorings and garnishes are the toast of summer parties, whether alcoholic or not.

As cocktail gardeners grow more adventurous, the happy-hour repertoire has expanded far beyond the classic spearmint sprig for juleps and mojitos. Think refreshing homegrown blackberry cocktails and summer drinks garnished with edible dianthus petals and frilly marigolds. When ingredients are within reach of an imaginative backyard bartender, every cocktail becomes a signature drink.

Outdoor entertaining takes a new twist with our ingenious Plant-A-Bar. Grow herbs for your favorite cocktails and harvest a fresh sprig as you relax.

Above all, a cocktail garden should be pretty and comfortable, says landscape architect Mary Palmer Dargan of Atlanta and Cashiers, NC. "My recipe for a successful cocktail garden is easy," she says. "You need a flat place for a table and chairs, and an étagère—a two-tier table for wine, cocktail mixes, and backup glasses."

What to Grow

Herbs

• Lavender
• Rosemary
• Orange mint
• Cuban mint
• Spearmint
• Thai basil
• Genovese basil
• Golden lemon thyme
• Lemongrass
• Lemon verbena
• Cilantro
• Rose-scented geranium

Vegetables and Fruits

• Gherkin cucumber
• Red currant
• Hot pepper
• Alpine strawberry
• Mini watermelon

Dargan, author of Lifelong Landscape Design (Gibbs Smith), recommends a stone or brick patio with built-in seating. "People like to perch," she says. "A seating wall instead of lots of furniture gets an A+ in my book."

Renewed interest in kitchen gardens, community gardens, farmers' markets, and edible landscaping fuels enthusiasm for garden-to-glass cocktails. Gardeners with bumper crops of strawberries, cherry tomatoes, or cucumbers seek new ways to use them, and stylish cocktails shake things up. Scott Beattie, author of Artisanal Cocktails (Ten Speed Press), pioneered bold use of local, organically grown fruit, herbs, and vegetables.

Beattie grows some ingredients, forages wild blackberries, and sources from organic farmers in Sonoma County, CA. Never underestimate fresh produce flavor in a cocktail, he says. A Pimm's Cup with backyard cucumbers "is a huge difference from grocery store. You'll be blown away by how something so simple can be so good, with delicate, complex flavor."

Amy Stewart, author of The Drunken Botanist (Algonquin), proves you don't need big space. She turned her narrow Eureka, CA side yard into a flourishing cocktail garden, mostly in pots and planters. She grows hops on a trellis, raspberries and blueberries in pots, contains mint in a raised planter doubling as a bar, and installed wall shelves for herb pots with room for bottles and glasses.

Dargan learned small-space gardening in Charleston, SC. "A human body takes two and a half feet to stand and drink champagne," she says, "but people love being crowded together. Don't be afraid to over-invite. People figure it out."

A fountain adds glamour, she says, and evening candlelight "moves the mood toward romance."

Dargan garnishes with nasturtiums or daylilies, mixes fresh peaches with champagne for bellinis, and recommends elderberry flower cordials. But the garden atmosphere itself is part of the cocktail, she says: "It provides ambiance—you're drinking fresh air, sunlight, and bird song." There's something intoxicating about the very idea.

Garden-Inspired Cocktail Recipes

Elderflower Cordial

From The Drunken Botanist by Amy Stewart. Serves 20.

• 1 750 ml bottle dry rosé wine (e.g., La Vieille Ferme)
• 2.5 cups (20 oz.) St-Germain elderflower liqueur
• 30 oz. club soda
• Strawberry slice or raspberry for garnish
• Ice

Mix rosé and St-Germain in a pitcher (can be done ahead). Fill glasses with ice, add 2 oz. mixture, top with 1.5 oz. club soda. Garnish with strawberry or raspberry.

For larger/smaller quantities: 5 parts wine, 4 parts St-Germain, 6 parts club soda. If using a punch bowl, add club soda just before serving.

Related: How to Make Simple Syrup: herb-infused sugar syrup recipes

Garden-Infused Simple Syrup

From The Drunken Botanist by Amy Stewart. Simple syrup balances cocktail flavors and adds sweetness to seltzer.

• ½ cup herbs, flowers, fruit, or spice
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 oz vodka (optional preservative)

Combine all except vodka in saucepan. Simmer, stir until sugar dissolves. Cool, strain through mesh. Add vodka if using. Refrigerate 1-2 weeks; longer in freezer.

The Grape

The Grape

From Andrew Silva, Burlington, VT chef and cocktail enthusiast. Fresh Concord grape juice harmonizes beautifully with bourbon. Use quality store brand if fresh unavailable. Makes two cocktails.

• 5 oz. bourbon
• 1 oz. fresh lime juice (no bottled or plastic lime)
• 1 oz. Cointreau
• 2 oz. grape juice

Shake all ingredients with ice. Strain into chilled cocktail glasses.