Cocktails with Fresh strawberries
Fresh strawberries are the sweet red fruit of the garden strawberry, muddled or juiced for fruit flavor and color.
Substitutes for Fresh strawberries
Fresh fruit brings three things: water, acidity and color. A purée holds the color and most of the acidity, loses the water to thickening, and usually arrives pre-sweetened. A syrup holds the color alone. Added sugar is the variable to check, and it is printed in the ingredients panel rather than on the front of the bottle.
Often confused with
Wild and alpine strawberries
Far smaller, far more aromatic and barely juicy. They garnish beautifully and muddle into almost nothing, so a drink built on crushed fruit gets their scent and none of their body.
Strawberry syrup
Sugar-led, with the fresh acidity cooked out of it: it colors and sweetens a drink and cannot stand in for the fruit itself.
Storage
A few days in the fridge, unwashed, in a single layer if there is room. Water is what rots them, so wash at the last moment and hull after washing, not before, or the berry takes on water through the cut. They perfume a fridge and take on its smells in return, so keep them covered.
