Last night we toasted the Mud House Year Blog's one year anniversary with Prickly Pear Gin and Tonics! You can find the recipe on Mud House Year by clicking here and you can learn how to harvest prickly pears here. Of course, if harvesting prickly pears is not on your fall agenda, you can always just buy prickly pear syrup here.
When we moved to Pasadena we knew we would no longer be surrounded by cactus so Allen bought dry ice and packed up our frozen prickly pear juice in a cooler and drove it to Pasadena (we worked hard on that harvest, darnit). It made the trip just fine and is now being put to very good use.
After thawing some of the juice... 
I combined it with an equal amount of sugar, and boiled it down to a lovely syrup. 
For the complete recipe, and to find out how to create that lovely layered look, click the recipe link I provided above.
Maybe it's because I haven't had any sugar in awhile or maybe the prickly pear juice is even better now that when we harvested it, but these G&Ts were even better than the ones we made last fall. Absolutely scrumptious and so pretty. 
Be sure to use plenty of fresh limes - they set off the sweetness and earthiness of the syrup perfectly
Cheers!
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