I wanted to get this one in before the holiday because we can all appreciate a pregame cocktail before the sudden onslaught of relatives to entertain! First, rip open a new box of Peeps that you had reserved for the Easter Bunny. Don’t worry, out of all the other amazing Easter candy out there, your kids will not notice a box of Peeps missing. They may even thank you later (hey, it’s a long shot because kids usually never thank their parents for anything, but Peeps have worked miracles before!).

Anyway, to help give that ham an extra squeak to the slice or to grant you the false confidence that you can decorate a lamb cake worthy of a Pinterest board, check out this fun Peeps cocktail recipe for some inspiration:

This cocktail definitely looks promising…what could possibly go wrong? Image and recipe courtesy of marshmallowpeeps.com

INGREDIENTS:

Lemon wedge
Colored sugar
1 ¹⁄₂ ounces cherry vodka
¹⁄₂ ounce Triple Sec
3 ounces half and half
Dash of Grenadine
1 Marshmallow PEEPS

DIRECTIONS:

Rim a martini glass with the lemon wedge and then dip the rim in colored sugar. Set aside

To a shaker filled with ice, add the cherry vodka, triple sec, half and half, and grenadine until chilled.

Strain into prepared glass and garnish with the Marshmallow PEEPS®. Serve immediately.

All right, now that you’ve checked it out, here’s my experience with this fun creation:

Hm, why was the vodka cherry-flavored instead of marshmallow-flavored? I understand if that’s a tough flavor to find, but I couldn’t find cherry vodka either. To be fair, I was only looking in a local grocery store and was too lazy to drive to Bevmo in a town over. To solve this problem, I substituted raspberry vodka in place of cherry. Don’t ask me why they have an obscure flavor like raspberry available and not basic cherry.

Three ounces of half and half: the local grocery store strikes again by only having the non fat half and half in stock. Thanks…

Grenadine: how about no-a-dine. I get that this was to create that signature Peeps pink color, but at least the recipe only calls for a dash of it. Grenadine just makes me think of overly sweet drinks that go down too easily only to lead to not so sweet choices.

Triple Sec: a common staple of many vodka-based drinks, you can’t go too wrong here. Even the cocktail maestro of Vanderpump Rules, Tom Sandoval agrees. When in doubt, Triple Sec it out.

You probably figured out by now that the Peep is a garnish and not an ingredient. I’m okay with that. Plus you will need the Peep garnish to get you through this cocktail and help remind you that you’re drinking Peeps juice.

While aesthetically pleasing, this will not distract me from experiencing how “meh” it tastes.

So what’s the verdict of this cocktail? Well…long story short, my friend and I didn’t finish it. We dumped it immediately and the rosé faithfully waited for us in the fridge as if to say: “I told you so.”

The cocktail turned out to be a weak watery milkshake martini. We actually enjoyed eating the Peep garnish more than drinking the Peeps juice. That said, I do acknowledge that I did not make the cocktail true to the recipe, so this is more of a critique of my sad cocktail-making skills rather than the original recipe.

The cocktail won some bonus points for looking like a fun $17 cocktail you get in those trendy sugar lounge places, but I just didn’t quite capture the flavors correctly. I was expecting something more like an espresso martini without the espresso.

Here we are oblivious to the future disappointment of this cocktail.

Possible adjustments for next time:

Sub out half and half for heavy cream or Strawberry flavored Baileys. If you go with Strawberry Baileys, you would no longer need the Grenadine to provide the pink color.

Instead of cherry vodka, I’m curious how marshmallow vodka would mix with this. If not, then go with strawberry vodka

Overall, I learned something important: always use the correct ingredients…or just trust your gut.