Drink This Cocktail to Celebrate Scorpio Season

This Rosemary Juniper Collins will allow you to be unabashedly ambitious.

Rosemary Juniper Collins cocktail
Photo by Cole Saladino
Photo by Cole Saladino
Welcome to the first in a monthly column where tarot priestess Melinda Lee Holm and chef Courtney McBroom, co-authors of Divine Your Dinner, share advice for what you should be drinking this month, according to astrology and the stars.

Our book is out, it’s Halloween week, and Mars is headed into Scorpio on October 31, followed by the new moon in Scorpio on November 4. We’re going big and we’re going deep or we’re going home! (And just to be clear, we’re not going home.)

Mars the warrior in deep dark Scorpio encourages us to pursue our most hidden passionate desires with everything we’ve got. Let your secret goals come to the surface, be unabashedly ambitious, let tenuous bonds break. It’s survival of the fittest and anything that won’t make the cut is ripe for a crisis. Welcome these moments of drama and let them pass as quickly as they come. There is no time to waste. The new moon in Scorpio allows the young shoots growing up through the ashes of the past to take hold. Make clear decisions about what you will nurture and weed out the rest.

All this psychic upheaval calls for some serious energetic cleansing. Allow our Rosemary Juniper Collins to help. Juniper berries pack a powerful evil-banishing punch while rosemary soothes the heart and lemon offers much needed clarity to plan your next steps. Plus, you’ll want something to sip on while you watch the ruins of your old restrictions crumble to dust.

Rosemary Juniper Collins Recipe

Yield: 1 cocktail

We’re coming at you with a double dose of juniper berries here. Not only does the syrup have these magickal little botanicals, but the spirit itself—gin—is also chock full of them. It’s required by law, actually! That’s right, gin cannot legally be called gin unless it contains juniper berries. That said, if you absolutely cannot be asked to drink gin, feel free to use vodka instead, there’s plenty of juniper in the simple syrup to keep you safe.

Ingredients:

  • 2 fresh rosemary sprigs, plus extra for garnish
  • 1 ounce juniper syrup (recipe follows)
  • 2 ounces gin
  • ¾ ounce freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • club soda

Directions:
Muddle the rosemary sprigs and juniper syrup together in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. Add the gin, lemon juice and ice and shake. Strain the drink into a Collins glass or tumbler, top with club soda and a sprig of rosemary.

Juniper Syrup

Ingredients:

  • 2 tablespoons juniper berries
  • ½ cup sugar

Directions:
Smash the juniper berries with a mortar and pestle, or pulse them in a spice grinder, until they are just crushed, but still in large pieces. Add the crushed juniper berries and the sugar to a small pot, then stir in ½ cup water. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium high heat. Remove from the heat and stir to dissolve. Let the syrup steep at room temperature for 4 hours. Chill and strain before using in the Rosemary Juniper Collins. The juniper syrup will keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to three months.

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Melinda Lee Holm has studied and practiced the art of tarot for more than twenty-five years. Her readings, writing, and Elemental Power Tarotdeck inspire and inform people all over the globe.

Courtney McBroom is a chef, food writer and the founder of Ruined Table. She is a native Texan, a New Yorker at heart, and she currently lives in Los Angeles (which she loves very much).