When we were at the Slow Flow­ers Sum­mit at Filoli in late June, I stopped into the gift shop. It is after all, one of my favorite things to do after strolling through a beau­ti­ful botan­ic gar­den. I pur­chased some items for my kids and my par­ents and then found this pret­ty book flower cock­tail book called Flo­ral Liba­tions: 41 Fra­grant Drinks + Ingre­di­ents Flower Cock­tails, Non-Alco­holic and Alco­holic Mixed Drinks and Mock­tails Recipe Book.  The author is Cassie Winslow and the pho­tog­ra­ph­er is Doan Ly.

Since it is the start of sum­mer and I can’t resist a well-pho­tographed book on flow­ers, I bought it! This week I final­ly had time to try out some of the recipes and learned the trick to mak­ing ice cubes with flow­ers inside (so they don’t float to the top!). I shared some of that knowl­edge in this week’s Flower Arrang­ing Fri­day class where I also showed how to make a fun “mar­gari­ta-inspired” flo­ral design in an over­sized mar­ti­ni vase!

Floral Libations Book inside

One of the 41 recipes in the Flo­ral LIba­tions book. Cred­it: Flo­ral Libations

There are cock­tail and mock­tail recipes in the book. Many involved mak­ing a sim­ple syrup that is infused with flower petals. You can pur­chase fresh flow­ers that are safe to eat from a com­pa­ny called Gourmet Sweet Botan­i­cals. You can also buy pre-mixed syrups that are infused with flow­ers from a com­pa­ny called The Flo­ral Elixir Com­pa­ny. After I made my ice cubes, I added a short cut flower cock­tail called Sec­co Impe­r­i­al, a sparkling white wine made with Lotus flower from Casa Lui­gi, a wine com­pa­ny in Italy.

Flower Ice Cubes

The author of the book instructs read­ers on the right way to make ice cubes filled with flow­ers. It is a 3‑step process! Pho­to by Kit Wertz

Inspired by the book and the flower cock­tails, I made a flo­ral design in a fun mar­ti­ni-shaped vase that we’ve used for past PTA fundrais­ers for Casey’s school dis­trict. I show you how to get around the awk­ward shape and design “on top” of the vase.

Giant martini vase

We have a large set of these fun giant mar­ti­ni vas­es. Case added some “olives” for gig­gles. Pho­to by Kit Wertz

Stu­dents from all over the world can join our Flower Arrang­ing Fri­day class­es or sign up for our newslet­ter to learn how to design “cock­tail” inspired flow­ers! Whether you are actu­al­ly design­ing a flower cock­tail you can drink or flow­ers for the cock­tail hour of a spe­cial event, Casey and Kit have a class for you.

On July 23, 2021, our week­ly online class was called “Cock­tails with Flow­ers” and Kit cov­ered the flow­ers that are edi­ble, where to buy them, how to make her favorite flo­ral cock­tail (not in the book!) and how to design a gor­geous flo­ral design in the giant mar­ti­ni vase, too!!!! This class­es are so sophis­ti­cat­ed and affordable.

So…sign up for sum­mer flo­ral inspi­ra­tion and have fun with friends mak­ing flo­ral drinks for everyone!

Giant Martini Vase florals

Kit made this giant mar­ti­ni vase design for Flower Arrang­ing Fri­day sub­scribers. Pho­to by Flower Duet