🥒 Garden Summer Spritz (Pitcher Recipe)

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I love to serve my welcome cocktails in a pitcher — it signals ease, joy, and gives us time to actually enjoy our guests instead of shaking drinks one by one. For September’s dinner party, I wanted a garden-inspired drink to toast the end of summer, and the Hugo Spritz was the perfect canvas. We dressed it up with Persian cucumbers, lemon slices, and sprigs of mint for a refresh that felt both elegant and playful.

My sister Nathalie even surprised us with beautiful colored coupes to serve them in — the kind of detail that instantly makes a drink feel more celebratory. We sliced Persian cucumbers on the mandolin and tucked them around the inside of each coupe, so every pour looked like it came straight from a garden.

Recipe: 🥒 Garden Hugo Spritz (Pitcher for 6–8)

Ingredients

  • 1 bottle Prosecco, chilled

  • 1 cup vodka

  • 1 cup elderflower liqueur (like St-Germain)

  • 1 cup sparkling water (or more to taste)

  • 1 lemon, thinly sliced

  • 1–2 Persian cucumbers, mandolin sliced into thin rounds

  • Fresh mint sprigs

Instructions

  1. In a large glass pitcher, combine the vodka, elderflower liqueur, and lemon slices.

  2. Add the chilled Prosecco and sparkling water just before serving.

  3. Stir gently to combine — don’t over-mix or you’ll lose bubbles.

  4. Add cucumber rounds and sprigs of mint to the pitcher.

  5. Pour into coupes or wine glasses, garnishing with extra cucumber slices or mint if you like.

Tip: For a beautiful presentation, line the inside of each glass with mandolin-thin cucumber strip before filling with the spritz.

This cocktail ended up being the perfect opener for the Garden Party — light, floral, and endlessly refreshing. Serving it in pitcher form meant we could be free to clink glasses, meet new friends, and actually enjoy the evening. A true garden-to-glass moment.