Be My Valentine Sparkling Raspberry Grapefruit Mocktail

This Valentine's Day appropriate cocktail has all the flavor but none of the alcohol - full of deep raspberry flavors, a hint of grapefruit and topped of with pink pepper tonic to give it a grown-up taste and a bit of sparkle. So good you won't even miss the alcohol!

Raspberry & grapefruit not your flavor? Try an equally red and beautiful sparkling Cranberry Ginger Ale Punch instead - or go blue with a delicious Blue Lagoon Mocktail.

If you listened to my episode of BFF with the Chef, you know making mocktails is a new hobby of mine. I have so much fun thinking up all these flavor combos, and as I'm a quite impatient person I really like how quickly you get to your final result. No cooking and baking and waiting and waiting and waiting - just mix some stuff together, taste, and start over if you didn't like it.

And since there's no alcohol - I can do it on a Tuesday morning, and have as many trial-and-errors as needed without getting drunk or pouring it down the drain.

Since I started making more mocktails at home I'm always on the lookout for different flavorings to add to them. You know, we're going for tasty and grown-up even without the alcohol - which is no simple feat. So when I found Schweppes Pink Pepper Tonic at my grocery store I knew I had to try it!

And let me just say - YUM! It's so perfect for making mocktails, because it has a very distinct tang to it. To be honest, I couldn't really taste the pink pepper, but I did feel like this tonic had an even sharper taste than the regular kind. And hence, works even better for a mocktail! Without the sharp taste of alcohol, I want all the bitter and feisty tonics I can find!

Another favorite when going for non-alcoholic yet grown-up in taste is grapefruit. I love grapefruit, in basically everything. Gimme a good grapefruit juice over OJ any day! But for non-alcoholic cocktails it's truly a lifesaver.

I've made mocktails with fresh pressed grapefruit juice before - this time I instead went for a grapefruit tonic, which is kinda like a grapefruit soda but a bt lighter on the sugar. I feel like while it has some added sweetness, it also has a more distilled and bitter grapefruit taste - which was exactly what I was after.

You could use regular grapefruit soda or grapefruit juice as well - just choose your favorite grapefruit drink and you'll be all set.

The third component here is a delicious raspberry mixture, and I can already see myself making a non-alcoholic daquiri from this come summer. It's super easy to make - just mix together raspberries, lemon juice, mint leaves and some water - and it gives this drink such a deep and delicious raspberry flavor and the perfect red color.

And that's all there is to this beautiful Valentine's Day mocktail. What's your go-to for making your mocktails taste more grown-up? Let me know in the comments below, and that might be my next one to try!

Recipe