Mary Quant Minidress: The Reveal

Project 4, part 6 – A Fruity Drink! (Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5 here)

Welcome back to the Mary Quant minidress sewing project! Not only is the dress finished, but my husband also just refinished our patio furniture and set up the sunbrella. 🙂 So it seemed to me to be the perfect time to mix up a fruity drink and show off my dress!

I am SO happy with how this turned out! It’s really comfortable to wear. It’s definitely a minidress – I have to watch how I bend or sit down, hahah! Which I suppose is period-accurate – some gals in the 60s wore their dresses even shorter. The collar is a tad bulky but the structure underneath keeps it from shifting or creasing too much so it’s fine. The waist belt in the back turned out to be really cute, too!

The cotton means it’s machine washable if I really wanted to go that route, but I’ll probably hand-wash it to avoid any damage to the buttons since they’re not the most secure things in the world. I trust my seams though!

The drink I chose from Shannon’s book is the Quarterdeck, with a few liberties taken to suit my tastes. Her recipe is:

2 oz Navy-strength gin
1/4 oz yuzu liqueur
1/2 oz green tea syrup
1/2 oz fresh lemon juice

I substituted my absolute favorite gin in the world, from the Dry Fly distillery here in Washington State. (Thanks, Liz – you’ve ruined me for all other gins! ❤ ) I actually used the barrel-aged gin, since it’s a bit more mild, but the regular would have been delicious too! I always have yuzushu in the house so that was easy. The green tea simple syrup I made by brewing 8 oz of matcha genmaicha, then boiling it with 8 oz of white sugar. The lemon juice is from a batch of lemons my parents sent me from Southern California. I ended up doubling the amount of green tea syrup and lemon juice in my drink, and adding an ice cube instead of just shaking it with ice.

If you prefer a non-alcoholic version I would recommend making lemonade with water, lemon juice, and green tea simple syrup, and then chilling it before you pour it over ice. (I’m actually going to be making lemonade with the leftover syrup, myself! It’s ridiculously tasty.) You could add a bit of lime peel to simulate the citrusy bitterness of the gin and yuzushu. And of course, don’t forget your paper umbrella! 😀

I am so happy I chose this dress to make, and I can’t wait to wear it a bunch this summer! Thank you so much for joining me on the journey for this project, and I hope you enjoy what’s coming up next, too! ❤