Greenleaf Cocktails – Fresh Fruit plus Strong Wine
Greenleaf delivers delicious wine based cocktails
Greenleaf is well known for the their fresh salads, and wholesome sandwiches; although, they also have a unique cocktail program based on wine and distilled wine. I recently attended a sampling reception to taste this wine based cocktails made with fruit and herbs. Why wine cocktails? For restaurants with a beer and wine permits, you have to serve cocktails under 24%. At the same time, you have deliver a tasty adult beverage your customers will like.

Greenleaf in the SOCO Collection now offers delicious wine cocktails
Making the cocktails was Greenleaf SOCO manager, Laurie Koss who showed us how you can blend fruit and herbs with distilled wines to make fresh cocktails. I admit that I was skeptical of wine cocktails; although after trying them, I would pleasantly surprised by their quality. Below are the cocktails we tried:

Greenleaf’s wine based cocktails follows the same practice as their salads, made from scratch and using fresh ingredients
Strawberry Fresca
The Strawberry Fresca is made with Petrov Reserve wine vodka with an alcohol percentage of 20%, but the same flavor of triple distilled vodka. In addition the cocktail has triple sec, fresh muddled strawberry, lemon juice, pomegranate juice, cubed sugar, sparkling soda and a float of Prosecco to add some subtle bubbles in the glass. The glass is rubbed and topped with a basil leaf.

The strawberry fresca is sweet like you would imagine, but since it is made with Wine Vodka, the taste is much smoother.
This cocktail was paired with kale chips that had a nice citrus finish and parmesan crisps that are studded with crispy kale crisps. The cocktail was also paired with a micro arugula, grilled pear, crispy prosciutto and burrata cheese. It was dressed with a balsamic reduction. I liked how the tangy and sweet layers of the sides matched the cocktails.

Greenleaf Cocktails Crispy Kale and Parmesan Chips. They need to sell these by the bag

Greenleaf Cocktails Grilled Pair and baby arugula salad
Ginger Sparkler
The ginger sparkler is made with Petrov Reserve Wine Vodka, lemon juice, cub sugar, freshly peeled and zested ginger and a float of Proseco. This cocktail was refreshing and perfect for a bug meal, as the ginger clears the palate.

Greenleaf Cocktails Ginger Sparkler Cocktails. It is very clean and refreshhing
The ginger sparkler was paired with their Wild Mushroom & Truffle Oil Pizza This pizza is made on a whole wheat tortilla, three cheeses, wild mushrooms, nutty arugula, truffle oil and shavings of pecorino romano. The second pizza was served with a slightly spicy house made Turkey Sausage Pizza ,mozzarella cheese, spicy romesco sauce, arugula, fennel, and shaved Pecorino Romano. The Ginger Sparkler did a great job cutting through the strong flavors in these dishes.

Greenleaf Pizzas are my favorite items on the menu
Cranberry Noir
The Cranberry Noir has a festive fall flavor, made with Leese Fitch Pinot Noir, cranberry juice, vanilla extract, lemon zest, sea salt, and sparkling soda. What I like about this cocktail is that the cranberry juice added a hard tang nose to the Pinot Noir. The vanilla extract acted to round out the flavors and gave it a clean and aromatic finish.

Greenleaf Cocktails Cranberry Noir is sweet, slightly tangy and is rounded by the use of vanilla.
The Cranberry Noir was paired with turkey sliders on a sesame seed bun, caramelized onions, roasted tomato, butter lettuce and a pomegranate cranberry aioli. In addition we tried their turkey meatball sliders with spicy tomato sauce, fresh baby mozzarella, basil and served on whole wheat chiabatta.

The Greenleaf Cranberry Noir was paired with the Turkey Slider
My Final Thoughts
If you are considering visiting Greenleaf, it is worth trying out one of their wine based cocktails; they go along with their lighter cleaner dishes. I liked the fact that the cocktails were made with fresh ingredients and got around their beer and wine license by the creative use of fortified wines. My personal favorite was the Cranberry Noir.
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I always leave your blog hungry. Lol Great looking food and cocktails
I too leave here hungry! I want some kale chips and the ginger cocktail!
Tom knows my biggest weakness…cocktails and food! I would love to try the cranberry noir…sounds festive too!
Where is Greenleaf? I think I’m living in the wrong place!
I like that they are drinking out of a mason jar, its kinda fun to do.
I always read your blog and have an urge to cook – and then I remember I can’t and I should go out to dinner instead. You seem able to find such great places to eat and drink.
I love kale chips and would even consider the turkey sliders… not much of a wine or spirits drinker! I must say some of your posts cause me to reconsider!!
The cranberry noir and turkey sliders would probably be the first thing I would try though everything sounds delicious.
Yummy.. all those drinks and food look so good!..
Did I see kale and cheddar chips? YUM!!!
Yummy! They were all so yummy but I think Cranberry Noir was my favorite:)
I just had to go get a snack after reading this. These things sound wonderful.
I am not a wine drinker but these cocktails sound awesome. I can see how that pizza is one of your favs. It looks delicious.
The strawberry Fresca sounds the best, I also love kale crisps
Once again you have wrote about a place that sounds wonderful! I wish I could visit and try the cocktails!
your aesthetic is fantastic can always tell your work!