Cocktail Of The Month: Treetini

By Amy Cavanaugh

One of Potter Lounge's excellent cocktails, the Treetini, isn't just a nicely balanced sip—when you order one, Illinois-based sustainability company Live It Green plants a tree in an area of the world where it's most needed, like India or Brazil. Patrick Coyne, the mixologist at Potter's Lounge, shared his Treetini recipe so you can make one at home. While you're sipping the sweet cocktail, visit the Treetini website to learn more about the initiative, and which other area restaurants are offering their own versions of the Treetini: www.treetini.com.

Ingredients:

3 oz. VeeV Acai Spirit
1 oz. St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur
1 oz. PAMA Pomegranate Liqueur
A squeeze of freshly squeezed lemon juice

Directions:

1. Add ingredients to a shaker with ice.
2. Strain into a chilled martini glass and garnish with a mint sprig.

CBSChicago.com: What inspired this cocktail?

Patrick Coyne: VeeV Acai Spirit was a product we picked up in 2010. It's made from the acai berry and other fruits, and we really liked it. Then we heard about the Treetini promotion, so we hopped on board for that. The drink itself came from playing around—it works well with St. Germain and pomegranate flavors.

CBSChicago.com: What else can you mix VeeV with?

PC: It's really versatile. You can substitute it in any vodka or gin drink. It's a liquor that is so different, and it takes on many characteristics of those clear liquors. Straight, it tastes sweeter than vodka, and has a friendlier taste to it.

CBSChicago.com: How long as it been on the menu?

PC: It's been on about 18 months. It's been by far our most popular drink, and we've sold more than 6,000 of them. Treetini is the name of the whole program, and in terms of the cocktail we can do what we want to with it. We did a strawberry basil martini when we rolled out the program. I try to switch it up twice a year.