Juniper girls

Last night, I did something I (almost) never do: I enjoyed mid-week cocktails with “the girls”. Or rather, with a random group of girls, some of whom I had never before met. All thanks to an online voucher deal and Facebook. (See, the Interweb can be a very good thing!)

It started last month when I saw a deal on itison.com for cocktails and nibbles at Juniper – a hoity-toity-ish cocktail bar in the centre of Edinburgh. Sadly, like most of the restaurant or hotel deals on these voucher sites, the deal was for two (or more) people. And that means that I couldn’t just enjoy the deal and go on my own.

Of course, the upside to that is that it created a situation where I had to find people to socialise with. So I took to Facebook to see if anyone would be interested. Soon, I got a response from L, a woman I met through another friend, and who had become a Facebook friend soon after. And between us, we gathered enough ladies to make up a six-person group for the voucher.

And that means that I ended up having an enjoyable girls’ night out, and I met new people in the process. In fact, no one in the group had known all of the other ladies, which meant everyone met (at least) one new person.

Oh! And I tried new cocktails, too. I normally have a Dirty Martini when I’m out for drinks, but I decided that it was time I branched out. My first drink was a “Juniper”, made from elderflower gin, citrus vodka, orgeat, fresh kiwi, apple juice, fresh lemon, and apple foam. It tasted like fresh-squeezed lemonade and was actually really nice. (Though too sweet for me.) My second drink was “The Expat”, which was made with Pimms, sherry, fresh lemon, lemonade (that’s lemon-lime soda in America), bitters, and fresh berries. It was delicious! The fizzy lemonade made all the difference. OK, maybe a bit on the sweet side again, but definitely one to enjoy again. (Though I will never completely forgo my Dirty Martinis!)

So yeah, it was a great night of new friends and new drinks. Which maybe isn’t completely worth a blog post, but I did say I was going to try to post most days this month.

The Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival starts tomorrow though, so hopefully, I’ll find some great new bands to tell you about over the next few days.

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