Raspberry Daiquiri

August approaches and with it the return of school and the end of the loose summer rhythm. Luis Jr. will be a senior — his last year of high school before the Army, before his life becomes his own in a way it hasn't been yet, and I am counting the months the way I count ingredients: finite, precious, measured by the handful. Isabella will be a freshman at Bel Air — following her brother's footsteps but making her own path, as she does with everything. Sofia starts seventh grade. Diego starts fourth. Camila starts kindergarten in September.

Kindergarten. My baby starts kindergarten. She is five in October and she is going to real school and the backpack is already purchased (pink, naturally) and the shoes are new and the outfit is planned and the mother is not ready, not even a little, not at all, because this is the last one, the last first day, the last time I walk a child to a classroom door and try not to cry in the parking lot. Luis Jr.'s first day feels like yesterday. Fourteen years. Fourteen years of first days and the last one is coming and time is a thief I would arrest if I could find it.

The bakery is humming. We had our best July ever — forty-one hundred in profit, up from thirty-two hundred last July. The newspaper article, the Instagram account, the word of mouth — it's all compounding. Sofia calls this "brand momentum." I call it "Rosa's recipes are good and people have taste buds." We are both right. We are always both right, which is the particular dynamic of a mother-daughter team where the mother has experience and the daughter has vocabulary and between them they cover everything.

I made aguas frescas this week — three kinds: Jamaica (hibiscus), tamarindo (tamarind), and horchata (rice-cinnamon). I made them in big batches for the bakery, in the glass dispensers that Sofia found at a restaurant supply store for fifteen dollars each (she negotiated the price down from twenty, because Sofia negotiates everything). The aguas frescas are a summer addition to the menu and they're selling well — the construction workers order Jamaica like it's water, and the neighborhood kids come in for tamarindo after school, and the abuelitas who come for conchas add horchata to their order and sit at the tables and sip and gossip, and the bakery sounds like a home, which is what it is.

I called Alejandro. He answered on the second ring, which is better than the fourth ring he'd gotten to. He said he was eating. I asked what. He said beans and tortillas. I said: "Whose tortillas?" He said: "Mine." And the fact that Alejandro is making his own tortillas — Alejandro, who never cooked, who sat at the table while Rosa cooked and didn't enter the kitchen unless the kitchen was on fire — the fact that he is making tortillas means he is trying. He is standing in Rosa's kitchen and using Rosa's comal and making Rosa's food, and it is probably terrible, and it is probably the bravest thing he has done since he built the house.

After a week of standing over those big glass dispensers — stirring the Jamaica, squeezing the tamarindo, ladling the horchata — I had fruit on my mind and cold drinks in my hands and the kind of tiredness that feels good, like something earned. The aguas frescas are for the bakery, for the construction workers and the kids and the abuelitas, but sometimes I want something just for me, after the cases are wiped down and the sign is flipped and the door is locked. This raspberry daiquiri has that same tart-sweet pull as a glass of Jamaica — the color is almost the same, actually — and it takes about three minutes to make, which is exactly the amount of time I have left at the end of a good day.

Prep Time: 5 min | Cook Time: 0 min | Total Time: 5 min | Servings: 2

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen raspberries
3 oz white rum
2 oz fresh lime juice (about 2 limes)
1 oz simple syrup (adjust to taste)
1 cup ice
Fresh raspberries and lime slices, for garnish

Instructions

Blend. Add the raspberries, rum, lime juice, simple syrup, and ice to a blender. Blend on high for 30–45 seconds until completely smooth.
Taste and adjust. Taste the mixture and add more simple syrup if you prefer it sweeter, or a splash more lime juice if you want it sharper. Blend briefly to combine.
Strain (optional). For a silky-smooth daiquiri, pour the blended mixture through a fine mesh strainer into a pitcher, pressing the pulp with the back of a spoon to extract all the juice. Skip this step if you don’t mind a little texture.
Serve. Pour into two chilled coupe or rocks glasses. Garnish with a fresh raspberry and a thin lime wheel on the rim. Serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Raspberry Daiquiri — The Color of Jamaica in a Glass