Strawberry Ginger Kombucha Cocktail

I will be the first to admit that over the past month and a half I have been slacking when it comes to taking care of myself. I haven’t been getting more than 6 hours of sleep a night, I haven’t been exercising as much as I need to feel good about myself, and I definitely haven’t been eating healthy enough for my liking. What I HAVE been doing is working, working some more and, oh, did I mention working?

Now let me just state that I am one of those people who, when I’m feeling healthy and “on”, really enjoys being busy and thrives on being pulled in multiple directions. I will go, go, go and LOVE it until one day, seemingly out of the blue, my mind and body hit a wall and I crash. HARD.

The past few weeks have been spent fighting the fact that I need to slow down a bit, start getting 7+ hours of sleep again and perform a complete overhaul on my diet. I took a momentary step back from blogging in order to work on the slowing down and sleep part of the equation and am now moving on to phase two: my diet. That is where today’s cocktail recipe comes in.

As of yesterday I am taking five days off from drinking in order to clear my system out, but before I embarked down this dry, dry road I had to enjoy one last hurrah in the form of today’s strawberry ginger Kombucha cocktail.

I know what you’re likely thinking…Kombucha in a cocktail, no thank you. My husband had a similar reaction to the idea when I thought this one up. In fact it was to a point where I really questioned what I could possibly be thinking. Alas, I had gotten it into my head a few months ago that I wanted, no NEEDED, to combine Kombucha and alcohol and, like a dog with a bone, I just couldn’t let it go.

Why Kombucha as a mixer you ask? Well I don’t know about you but I can feel the dehydrating, soul-sucking effects of alcohol after just one drink and find that it generally is the alcohol in conjunction with sugary mixers that is to blame. Frankly I was a bit sick of feeling dreadful after drinking and thought maybe Kombucha could make a difference.

Kombucha is a fermented beverage that has been around for 2,000+ years and has been said to do everything from help with poor digestion to fight cancer. While those claims are obviously greatly debatable, there is no doubt that the drink does come with health benefits. Made from slightly sweetened tea, Kombucha is full of scoby (colonies of good bacteria and yeast) that eat the sugar, tannic acid and caffeine in the tea leaving a cocktail of microorganisms that promote digestion and help maintain intestinal health behind. There is even evidence that Kombucha may boost the immune system and help stave off allergies.

I realize that combining this “miracle elixir” with alcohol somewhat defeats the purpose of drinking it at all. Regardless, in the name of curiosity I whipped up a vodka-based cocktail made with ginger Kombucha and muddled strawberries and basil over the weekend. Guess what? The drink was AMAZING, even my skeptical husband agreed. The taste of ginger Kombucha completely disguises the taste of vodka and the strawberries manage to cut out the tartness of the Kombucha. Basically it is a match made in cocktail heaven and is now my new favorite drink.

I may be drinking my Kombucha straight for the next week but once I’m ready to raise a cocktail to my lips again you’d better believe it will be one of these babies.