Veronica Rose

There’s no smell quite like that of fresh roses. Sweet, floral and uplifting, the fragrance of the flower’s petals often shows up in homemade facial toners and mists. But the benefits of the rose’s intense floral aroma and flavor extends to cocktails, too. This drink, made by Erick Castro of Polite Provisions in San Diego, turns rose petals into a potent syrup for a cocktail that combines rose’s floral scent with bittersweet Aperol and spritzy sparkling wine. “The bittersweet notes of grapefruit and orange in the Aperol are very aromatic and even a bit floral, so I decided to add to those layers with a rose petal gomme syrup that we make in-house and the union was beautiful,” Castro says, adding that the only way to finish the drink was with a bit of sparkling wine—naturally.