"Berry Tempting" Raspberry and Strawberry Daiquiris

In a celebratory mood this weekend (nothing better than toasting the warm weather and a nice, long holiday weekend), I busted out our blender for the first time (another wedding gift, thanks Kelli and Alex) and pureed some fresh berries into delicious summer drinks.  The best part is that Andrew was out for a guy's night with Phu, Rich and Jason, which meant I didn't have to share these with anyone!

First off, I made some simple syrup by following these directions - I ended up boiling down six tablespoons of white sugar with 12 tablespoons of water, which resulted in enough syrup for two drinks.

I started off combining a few different recipes and ended up adjusting along the way.

Raspberry Daiquiri
1 cup of fresh raspberries (I'm guessing may 20 - 25 raspberries)
3 tablespoons simple syrup
2 oz white rum
1 oz peach schnapps (in my world, EVERYTHING tastes better with peach schnapps in it)
12 ice cubes
Squeeze half a lime (or at least 3 tablespoons of fresh lime juice)

Hitting my ice breaker button first, and then blend, I blended for 20 seconds until smooth.  Voila! I had this vision of loveliness:

 And...since it was the holiday weekend and all, I didn't stop with one drink. I liked the raspberry daiquiri, but didn't think it did justice to the subtle raspberry flavor (so I saved the rest of my berries to eat) and was a little irritated by all the tiny raspberry seeds.  The seeds ended up collecting on the bottom of my glass while drinking, so it wasn't like I was getting a full mouthful, but I actually might recommend straining your daiquiri if possible.

Next up, I switched to fresh strawberries and used the exact recipe above except substituted 1 cup of sliced strawberries (I had six gigantic strawberries which fit the bill and I'm guessing around 10 regular strawberries would work).

The seeds weren't as irritating in this version and the strawberry flavor came through loud and clear. In fact, my mouth is watering as I look at this picture.

Be warned, these are very filling but I'd like to think they aren't that bad for you, with mostly fruit and ice making up the whole of the drink. I'm also thinking that you could easily substitute Splenda for the simple syrup to save on calories.

So the next chance you get - really, any warm night this summer - treat yourself to a berry daiquiri!