Low key evening called for an easy to make cocktail with ingredients on hand.  Did some random browsing on imbibemagazine.com (gratuitous plug) and found the Old Maid, a gin-based drink with cucumber that is similar to one of my favorite home-made drinks, the Ocean Side.

2 oz. gin
1 oz. fresh lime juice
3/4 oz. simple syrup (1:1)
3 cucumber wheels (cut 1/4-inch thick)
6-7 mint leaves
http://imbibemagazine.com/old-maid/

Nice and easy, chop chop!  When reading the directions, however, I noticed it warned against “bruising the mint” when muddling — whaaaa?  How is that possible?  I once saw a bartender sort of punch the mint leaf and was mystified — is that some sort of age-old bar trick to attract good luck?  Obviously, I could have googled it, but I prefer to live dangerously/stupid.  I figured it probably meant to lightly muddle the leaves:

Pretty ain’t it?  Love muddling, makes me feel like a man.  Anyway, the drink itself was pretty good — the cucumber came on really strong up front, but I got used to it.  Nothing particularly memorable, a 3 or 3.5, but a nice treat after work or before bed.  Oh yeah, I looked up how to bruise a leaf — don’t muddle it hard.  Its clear, I’m a natural 🙂