Cocktail Of The Week : Birdie Cocktail

"Spring is sprung, the grass is ris.
I wonders where the birdies is."

Ahhh.... Spring.
The season filled with hope, renewal, poetry, daffodils, longer evenings, blossoms, birdsong, newborn lambs and, of course, fat girls in flip flops.  What better time for one or more Birdie cocktails, to help us forget the sight of so many untanned legs and un-pedicured toes.

Birdie Cocktail

1 1/2 oz Light Rum
1/4 oz Triple Sec or Curacao
1/4 oz Pineapple Juice
1/4 oz Orange Juice
1/4 oz Pomegranate Juice or Grenadine

Combine in a shaker with ice. Shake well until very cold and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.  Garnish with a orange peel.

This easy cocktail uses readily available ingredients and of course, becomes more sophisticated when using fresh ingredients and high quality spirits.  Cruzan makes a fine inexpensive white rum, and Cointreau is a very good Triple Sec.  Those small six-packs of Dole pineapple juice are convenient, but if you happen upon a fragrant pineapple at Guercio's or your local market, you can easily get a few ounces of juice when you slice it up.  Use a fresh orange, especially for the peel, which you can strip off with your vegetable peeler. Then cut cut the orange in half and squeeze a bit with your hands - no need to dirty up tools for a quarter ounce of juice.  Squeeze the peel over your drink to express the oils into it, before dropping it in.