Happy Summer Solstice! Celebrate with salmon and fancy drinks!

Looking forward to enjoying long summer days when temps dip below 90 degrees

Today marks the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. As noted in this morning's WSJ, which quoted the director of the Whitworth Ferguson Planetarium of the State University of New York College at Buffalo (whew!), the summer solstice "is the day when the sun takes the longest path from sunrise to sunset across the sky. And that translated into the longest amount of daylight in the Northern Hemisphere."

For those of us in Michigan, we know it's one of the great perqs of this time of year - warm days that can stretch up to almost ten o' clock at night. We can pack so much in this time of year such as twilight golf, evening deck sitting without artificial light and long boat rides after dinner. But, as much as we celebrate these long summer days, we know, first hand, of places north of the Mitten State that exceed even our fifteen hours of daylight - the land of our peoples: Sweden and Finland.

The brief sunset at midnight in Rovaniemi, June, 2001

Just over twenty years ago, our family traveled to Scandinavia, this time of year, to visit family and be tourists in the land of our ancestors. Although there were many highlights to the trip, one of the most amazing things to experience was the land of the midnight sun. While in Rovaniemi, a city bordering the arctic circle, we drove to a wide open park just before 12:00 PM to witness the slight dip, followed by the immediate rise, of the sun.  

Of course, while Scandinavia can boast making the most of a summer day, they do, indeed, pay the piper during the winter. Daylight checks out as early as 3:00 o'clock in the afternoon. (Makes us Michiganders happy to know, we're not the only ones facing dark December days.)

But, now to the celebration! 

Searching on-line, we found A LOT of summer solstice specialty drinks, along with some Scandinavian inspired menus.  A Bon Appetite article from 2014, which lists fifteen Scandinavian recipes to celebrate "Midsummer" (aka, summer solstice), includes salmon dishes and more than one Vodka drink.

Salmon is a perfect way to celebrate Midsommer - already on the Gulley dinner menu for tonight

We actually had salmon on our dinner menu tonight (courtesy my gourmet chef husband, Chris), but I needed to source some summer solstice beverages. Taking stock in our inventory, we were short on quite a bit (my "peoples" like their vodka 😊) , but found something we could work with courtesy the Alabama Chenin Journal and their "summer solstice" drink.  This simple, but elegant, drink has only four ingredients:  prosecco, peaches, sugar and mint. Although we were missing the mint, we decided to go forth.

Pairing sparkling wine with peaches for the summer solstice drink

With fresh peach puree, the drink does evoke a taste of summer and it resembles a bright (but brief) sunset, so appropriate for summer solstice.

It was actually quite tasty, but without the mint, it lacked something. Chris suggested a dash of lemon juice and that really enhanced the taste.

Procuring peach puree for summer solstice

Taking inspiration from this summer solstice drink, and looking for some tea connection, we tried a bit of French Lavender, a jasmine, white tea syrup, we purchased from Bingley's Teas a few years ago. (This also allowed us to pay tribute to the other half of "my peoples", the maternal side from France.) Instead of the peach puree, we simply poured the syrup into the flute and added sparkling wine. While not unpleasant at all, it is very sweet. 

French Lavender, tea syrup

Specialty drinks pair well with Tost and champagne

We also paired these purees and syrups with Tost, our favorite NA sparkling drink with all similar results as the "fully loaded" versions. 

Summer solstice (left) evokes a sunset

We raise a glass of summer solstice to you! We look forward to when temps dip below 90 degrees, but will make the most of the long days . . . before December!