i'm josh berner head barman at ripple in cleveland park today i'm going to show you a cocktail i invented called eat the lemon it's a great cocktail for the winter time holiday parties dinner or just hanging out on the couch so the first thing we're going to do is take a candied lemon and these are very easy to make you just slice a lemon nice and thin and then simmer it in a mixture of one cup of water one cup of sugar for about half an hour and then start to mix your drink it starts with one ounce of citrus vodka i'm using charbae meyer lemon but you can make your own or buy any number of different brands out there doing half an ounce of creme de menthe it's a nice kind of peppermint minty flavored liqueur and if you just have mint schnapps or something along those lines you can use that too and then a couple of dashes of peach bitters then you add your ice and stir it up you just need to give it a light stir it doesn't need to be too much just enough to chill it down a little bit and integrate all the flavors then just strain it into your glass and top it with some sparkling wine the nice thing about this drink is when you're finished with the cocktail you can eat the garnish and that's eat the lemon