It’s hard to find many health benefits in a dry martini, but plenty of other cocktails incorporate fruits, berries, and even herbs to create tempting drinks with a healthy boost. For ideas, we asked some of Maine’s nearly two dozen craft distilleries for their favorite health-added cocktails that use their products.

Blueberry Cabernet Sauvignon. Photo courtesy Sweetgrass Farm Winery & Distillery.

Who would have guessed what an array of cocktails Maine’s mixologists have created to show off the distillers’ art? The results included wines, liqueurs, cordials, and syrups, as well as stronger spirits mixed with some super-healthy ingredients.

Maine’s favorite fruit, the wild blueberry, is a powerhouse of antioxidants, those all-important cancer fighters that are also found in other red and purple berries. Not surprisingly, we found distillers across the state making good use of this local harvest.

Constance Bodine, of Sweetgrass Farm Winery & Distillery (www.sweetgrasswinery.com) in Union, points to several products their customers find healthful. “The first are our Maine wild blueberry wines, smash, and sangria – packed full of blueberries,” she said. Aromatic bitters are also on the healthy list, particularly their Elderberry Bitters.

“The elderberries are packed with antioxidants and vitamins that can boost your immune system by fighting inflammation and reducing stress, which is beneficial to heart health” she explained. “Experts recommend elderberries to help prevent and ease cold and flu symptoms.”

A favorite Sweetgrass cocktail is the Splash, a simple mix of gin and bitters. Also popular, Tonic and Bitters or Bitters and Soda, which look like real cocktails but without the alcohol hit.

Syrups add punch to both mocktails and cocktails. Photo courtesy Keri Herer via Split Rock Distilling.

T and B (Tonic and Bitters)

• 6 dashes (3/8 teaspoon)
• Sweetgrass Blueberry or Elderberry bitters
• ¼ lime
• Chilled tonic water

Fill a tall glass with ice cubes. Add bitters and squeeze the lime to release the juice, adding the lime rind to the glass. Fill the glass with tonic water and stir gently to blend.

Andrew Stewart, and his business partner Jeremy Howard, a seventh-generation blueberry farmer, founded Blue Barren Distillery (bluebarren.com) in Camden in 2018, using 30,000 pounds of the farm’s blueberries to make their first batch of eau de vie. They have since added Myrteau Blueberry Aperitif and Barren’s Sugar Kelp Vodka to their line, which also features gins, rums, and flavored vodkas.

“Our Myrteau is made from fermented and distilled blueberries to make an eau de vie, then is blended with blueberry juice and aged for three years in oak; it is packed full of antioxidants,” Stewart said. “We normally serve this as is in a similar way to port. It could also be served as another one of our cocktails, a Blueberry Aviation.”

Blue Barren Distillery’s Myrteau Blueberry Apertif. Photo courtesy Blue Barren Distillery

Blueberry Aviation

• 1 ½ oz Barren’s Harbor Gin
• ½ oz lemon juice
• ½ oz luxardo
• ½ oz Barren’s Myrteau

“Barren’s Sugar Kelp Vodka has pulled through lots of the flavor and essence of the kelp, which is, of course, packed with beneficial properties; we do not, however, know specifically what comes through after distillation and what does not,” Stewart explained.

Sugar Kelp Collins

• 1 ½ oz sugar kelp vodka
• ¾ oz fresh lemon juice
• ½ oz simple syrup

Top with soda water and garnish with lemon wedge

Dan Davis, co-founder of Sebago Lake Distillery (www.sebagolakedistillery.com) in Gardiner, has created the Mt. Pisgah Sour to show off his Original Rum, adding a healthy dose of iron, immune-boosting vitamin C, and antioxidants from lime, lemon, and passion fruit juices.

Blue Barren Distillery’s Sugar Kelp Vodka. Photo courtesy Blue Barren Distillery.

Mt. Pisgah Sour

• 2 oz Original Rum
• 2 oz Welch’s Passion Fruit Cocktail blend
• Juice of 1 lime (about 1 oz)
• Juice of ½ lemon (about 1 oz)
• ½ oz egg white (pasteurized)

Shake vigorously until you get a nice foamy head. Pour over ice and add a few drops of Angostura bitters

Davis noted that you need to “really shake like crazy to get the egg white head for the bitters to float on. The bitters float is really fun for your nose while you’re taking your first sip.”

Along with rye, bourbon, rum, and gin, Mossy Ledge Spirits (www.mossyledgespirits.com) in Etna produces a range of cordials. These 40-proof beverages, which include cherry, pineapple, blood orange, and birch beer cordials, can be sipped over ice or made into cocktails and mixed drinks. The Cherry Fling, for example combines their Cherry Cordial with vodka, pomegranate seltzer, and grapefruit juice for a refreshing summer drink. For an adult version of a childhood favorite, add a dash of cream to iced Blood Orange Cordial for a Creamsicle.

Some distilleries like Split Rock Distilling (splitrockdistilling.com) in Newcastle, also make non-alcoholic simple syrups from antioxidant-rich berries – raspberry, cranberry, blackberry, and organic wild blueberry – to give a healthy boost to cocktails or to use with sparkling water for mocktails that still retain all the flavor and glamour.

Blueberry Chai Old Fashioned cocktail. Photo courtesy Kirk Jones/Split Rock Distillery.

Blueberry Chai Old Fashioned

• 2 oz Split Rock Organic Bourbon
• ¼ oz Royal Rose Blueberry Organic Syrup
• 5 Drops of Chai’Walla Chai Bitters

Build over a large cube and stir to chill.

Whether you are taking a drink or are taking a break, Maine’s natural ingredients used by these distilleries can boost your health sip by sip.

Story by Bobbie Randolph. Bobbie is a New England travel and food writer with a fondness for Maine – and cocktails. Follow her blog at https://worldbite.wordpress.com.