Kona Copia

Many of us here in southern California have loads of excess citrus fruit from our own or our friends’ trees. It’s always a challenge to figure out what to do with all of it, but I have a solution for at least one variety of citrus. This week a coworker gave me a bag of Kona limes from a tree on her property. I had never heard of a Kona lime, so I did a bit of investigating.

The Kona, or Rangpur, Lime is common in Hawaii as a decorative tree. It is a natural hybrid of a lemon and mandarin orange. The juice tastes much like a combination of the two fruits, but it also has an almost creamy undertone. Faced with the task of creating something interesting from a bunch of Kona limes, I settled on a cocktail that I dub The Kona Copia. The following recipe makes 2 cocktails. Here is what you will need.

• 4 ounces of fresh squeezed Kona Lime juice (from 10-15 Kona Limes)
• 4 ounces Captain Morgan’s spiced rum
• 1 Tablespoon of honey
• 2 ounces of soda water

Put the Kona lime juice, several of the juiced lime halves, rum, honey, and a small amount of ice into a Boston shaker and shake for at least 5 seconds. Strain over ice into 2 Collins glasses. Top off with 1 ounce of soda water per glass. Garnish with mint leaves if you have any (I didn’t). It tastes almost like an Orange Julius.

Give it a try and let me know what you think. If you send me other creative uses for your Kona limes, I’ll publish them on the blog.