Sparkling Green Apple Limeade

I miss Cost Plus World Market.

I really do. It allowed me to stay on the west side and find odd food that otherwise I might have to drive 30 minutes to find.

Actually, in the case of this recipe, it was more than an hour.

You see, I was on the hunt for green apple soda.

I had a day where my brain was being particularly stubborn, and long story short, I decided to run to The Party Source at lunch to look for green apple soda. They have that whole fixture in the back for odd flavored pops, right next to all the mixers. Surely, they must carry something green apple flavored, I thought.

Not so much. The green packaging was for lime, ginger and celery flavored products, respectively. (What do you do with celery pop, anyway?)

Sure, I had a couple other things I wanted to pick up, but it could have waited.

Still no World Market back on the west side...so I head to Jungle Jims.

I know they have a whole aisle there of domestic brand pops. And if that doesn't work out, all the way at the back is an aisle of Mexican sodas.

I meandered through the store, looking at various things, putting very little in my hand basket. I want to try everything! But I only have so much money in my bank account and room in my apartment.

I go up and down the domestic pop aisle.

Nothing.

Well, poo.

I head to the very back, to the aisle with all the Mexican sodas. And start looking at all the green bottles. It's a very good thing they the manufacturers put pictures of the fruit on a lot of the bottles, because my Spanish is rusty.

Not rusty enough, however, that I couldn't read "manzana verde" and know it meant "green apple."

There was only one kind of green apple pop. So I picked up two bottles. I also got two bottle of ginger beer because I'm fairly certain I have a recipe that calls for that, too, and I really didn't want to drive all over town again.

I make the limeade and slice the apples the night before, although I don't put the two together yet. I know I've got at least an hour between when I get home and when my friends show up. So as soon as I get home, that's when I dump the Gala apple slices in. And then put the whole thing back in the fridge.

When my first friend arrives, I ask her if she thinks we will drink an entire pitcher of this. She says yes, especially since there is no alcohol in it. So I have her add both bottles of the Mexican soda. We forego the extra lime slices.

I don't know what kind of crack I was on that I thought this was centered or in focus.

The pop is really sweet and the limeade is, obviously, quite tart. They balance each other out nicely and it's not too bubbly. After I drink one glass as the recipe intended, I have another, but add some green apple vodka. It was very tasty.

We all really liked the this.

And drank the whole pitcher.

Conclusion: Yum. And make regular trips to Jungle Jim's?