Prickly Pear Lime Soda
A vivid magenta soda made from cactus fruit — sweet, lightly earthy, and unlike anything else on a mocktail menu.
Ingredients
- 1.5 oz prickly pear syrup (or blend and strain 3-4 peeled prickly pear fruits with 0.5 cup sugar)
- 0.75 oz fresh lime juice
- Soda water, to top
- Lime wheel, to garnish
Instructions
- 1Fill a highball glass with ice.
- 2Add prickly pear syrup and lime juice.
- 3Stir briefly, then top with soda water.
- 4Garnish with a lime wheel.
Origin & Story
Prickly pear — the fruit of the nopal cactus — has been eaten and drunk in Mexico and the American Southwest for thousands of years. Its syrup turns an almost unnatural shade of magenta-fuchsia that no artificial coloring can quite replicate, and its flavor sits somewhere between watermelon, hibiscus, and bubblegum. Bars in Tucson, Santa Fe, and Phoenix have featured it for decades.
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