Sweet Surrender Cocktail Recipe

OK, sorry it took me so long to get back to you, but I've been a busy girl -- even more than normal.

One of my new activities is joining my first book club, informally known as the Best Book Club Ever. It's filled with smart, fun women, who are mostly attorneys or their wives. Our first book was My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult, a very moving and controversial tale of a girl who was born in order to donate stem cells, and then bone marrow to her older sister who has a rare form of cancer.

Since I was longing for a bit of spring, I decided to create a girly, rose-scented cocktail to add some sparkle to our first meeting. I named it after a hot pink rose called Sweet Surrender. Here, finally, is the recipe:

Sweet Surrender aka Book Club-tinis
Makes 1 cocktail
2 tablespoons Stirrings 60 Petals Rose Essence
splash Torani raspberry syrup
Rotari Brut sparkling wine
candied rose petals

Add the rose syrup and a drizzle of raspberry syrup to a champagne flute. Top off with Rotari or another favorite brut sparkling wine. Add a few pieces of candied rose petals to the glass, they'll float up and down and make it extra bubbly.

I plan to sip a few of these while reading our next book, The Other Boelyn Girl by Philippa Gregory, a tale of political intrigue, romance and sibling rivalry set in the court of King Henry VIII.