When life gives you strawberries...

Its not nearly as discouraging or overwhelming as when life is dealing out lemons, but as I've always said...well not always, but I've been known to say... or at least I have said once: 'When life gives you strawberries, make Daiquiris!' That statement could have been followed by make Jam or Pie or even strawberry drizzle for Vanilla Ice Cream... but Daiquiris are more fitting with the beverage theme of lemons into lemonade.  Not to mention delicious.

Now through my short time as a consumer of this tasty iced beverage I've discovered you never know what caliber of daiquiri that you'll get at a bar or restaurant. If you need one that is hearty and refreshing home made is best. I've tried a few different strategies while making my own at home.  The actual fruit blended with the white rum, ice and daiquiri mix is a must, but after some important hands on research I come to the conclusion that frozen strawberries add much more complexity to the drink than fresh ones.  

When using frozen strawberries another key factor is to blend the ice cubes before adding the frozen strawberries.  If blended at the same time you lose any of the texture the berries have to offer. I like my daiquiris more like a meal than a drink... the fruit chunks are a necessity. There is nothing worse than getting a strawberry icee claiming to be a daiquiri only to be flavored with rum and red food coloring.

Home grown berries pack much more sweetness than store bought ones.  Knowing this and having the opportunity to pick strawberries in my mother's private berry patch, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my share of the harvest.  During berry season they need to be picked nearly every day, or the fruit will become overripe and spoil.  As the season progresses the berries get smaller and less attractive, as my luck has it my turn was at the tail end of the berry crop and things were getting a bit suspect.  Although there were slimmer pickings and less desirable fruit I was not dismayed; with daiquiris being my end game aesthetics were not a driving factor in berry choice.  Everything with enough red made it into the berry box.

Once they made it home they got a quick rinse, were allowed to dry of in a colander.  The cleaning and freezing was pretty straight forward.  I removed the stems and bruising and placed them in daiquiri ready pint-sized freezer safe bags. 

Did I mention I liked my daiquiris chunky?  No, the straw was used to get all the air our of the bag. 

Each bag measured our for a single batch of drinks and placed into the freezer to await a worthy libation.
I have the macrame lawn chairs and a blender... who's gonna join me?  I've got the berries, will you bring the rum?