Snow White Beverages

“When there’s too much to do, don’t let it bother you”— Whistle While You Work

Snow White Sangria, Seven Dwarf Shots, Gooseberry Punch

I'm so excited to share this post because this is the idea that got me so excited to do this blog!  In case you missed this in my introduction post, my goal is to create a cocktail AND a mocktail for each Disney Animated Classic Movie and I'm going in chronological order.  For Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, I made Snow White Sangria, 7 Dwarf Shots, and Gooseberry Punch.

Snow White Sangria

Snow White Sangria Batch

One Bottle of White Wine

3/4 Cups Peach Schnapps

2 Cups Lemonade

One Apple Cored and cut

6 Strawberries cut

50 blueberries

Brands of ingredients I used

Directions:

1. Pour bottle of wine into pitcher

2. Add Peach Schnapps

3. Add lemonade

4. Add fruit to your liking.   Note: I did apples first, blueberries, and then strawberries to spread out the colors.

Note: I let mine settle in the fridge with the fruit for 24 hours and it was so tasty the next day.

When I was first brainstorming ideas to go with this movie, I was going to do one of those adorable layered cocktails that you see on Pinterest, but since I am making these from scratch versus following a recipe, I didn't want to do all the experimentation to find the items with the right sugar content to layer properly.  I absolutely fell in love with how this creation turned out and it will definitely be my go-to recipe for sangria.  I've been on a peach flavor kick for the past year, which is new for me, so I try to find drinks with peach flavor when I can and it fit this flavor profile very well.  The reasoning behind the high amount of fruit is to bring out the colors of Snow White's traditional dress (strawberries and blueberries), and apples are a reference to the poison apples in the story.  The reason I added so many blueberries was to bring out the blue color again the double red fruit.

Seven Dwarf Shots

Doc

3/4 oz Kinky Fruit Punch

3/4 White Grape Juice

Optional: Gold Sugar on the Rim

Dopey

3/4 oz Kinky Green

1/4 Sprite

1/4 Lemonade

Optional: Purple Sugar on Rim

Sleepy

1 oz Mozart Chocolate

1/2 Cointreau

Optional: Teal Sugar on Rim

Sneezy

1 oz Tequila

1/2 oz Mango Schnapps

Rim with Tajin Seasoning

Bashful

3/4  Cherry Vodka

3/4 White Grape Juice

Optional: Teal Sugar on Rim

Grumpy

1 1/2 Goldschlager

Splash of Grenadine

Crushed Graham Cracker on Rim

Happy

1 oz Mozart Chocolate

1/2 oz Caramel Vodka

Optional: Rim with caramel

Directions:  All of these (except Grumpy) were made with the liquid ingredients shaken together with ice in a cocktail shaker and poured into a shot glass that already at the decorative rim set up.  For Grumpy, put the shot in the pre-decorated shot glass and put a splash of grenadine right on top.

Originally, my idea was to do two-toned shots, but I quickly realized that was going to be very complicated and there are some unique colors in the dwarf outfits.  So instead, I thought I would try to do some decorative touches as a nod to the color of their hats and some of the shots I was able to make the color of their shirts. 

Some fun details about the shots:

• Cherry Vodka was used for Bashful shot as a nod to his blushing as cherries are red. 

• The Sneezy Shot has a rim of Tajin as a nod to spicy which can cause people to sneeze.  I thought of pepper, but figured this would be more of something people would try.

Gooseberry Punch

Gooseberry Punch

3 Drops of Green Food Coloring

8 oz of Sparkling Apple Cider

2 tablespoons of Gooseberry Puree

Gooseberry Puree:

1 Can of Gooseberries (10.58 oz) Amazon.com: Princes Gooseberries 300g : Grocery & Gourmet Food

4 Tablespoons of Sugar

Directions:

1. Strain the can of gooseberries

2. Put gooseberries in a food processor

3. Add sugar

4. Blend

5. Put food coloring, apple cider, and puree in cocktail shaker and shake with ice

6. Pour into glass and enjoy

Note:  Food coloring was only added because we felt that the puree looked like something you'd find in a baby diaper.  If you still have lots of puree chunks that look unappetizing, pass through the strainer again to catch more!

The rabbit hole of information I went down as I was researching for this mocktail could be a whole separate blog post on its own.  If I thought there was anyone as invested in the fruit as I me, I would have done that!  There is one problem though, there is so much conflicting information on gooseberries!  Before I launch into story time, let's address where the gooseberry reference comes from.   When the witch comes to see Snow White at the cottage, Snow White mentions she is making gooseberry pie.  When I was brainstorming what I wanted my mocktail to be, I wanted to stay away from all apple-based items as I feel like that's so common, so was very intrigued by the gooseberry concept.

Here is a summary of my adventures in gooseberries:

I knew that gooseberries weren't going to be a normal grocery store item as I'd never come across them before in the 3 different states that I've lived in.  I started to do research and realized that in some states gooseberries were finally legal again in 2021.  This caught my attention as I've never heard of any fruit being illegal!  I dug deeper to find out that gooseberries have been outlawed in places in the United States for nearly 100 years!  The gooseberry plants were getting diseased, and they were damaging trees that were being used for furniture wood.  The government decided trees were a better use of the land, so the country said goodbye to gooseberries.  I found it interesting that gooseberries are still used in Europe.  In fact, when I was searching where I could find some gooseberries, many of the first things that popped up would have shipped from overseas.  As I'm a girl who likes to have answers to everything, I started to dig for information. I was confused to find many inconsistencies when it came to the history of the gooseberry in the United States.  I also found a lack of information about them AND a lack of places that sell them. 

While the history of gooseberries was something I was curious about, it also had me wondering why Walt Disney and the team working on Snow White chose gooseberries as the fruit of the pie that Snow White was making.  I even researched the Grimms text to see if there was a mention of gooseberries in there to see if it was from source material.  If my research is accurate, gooseberries would have already been illegal here, so it wouldn't have been a pie that people were regularly making.  I never did figure out this answer, so if anyone has connections to someone that might know the answer, send me a message!  I even sent the question to the Disney Archives, and I have not received a response.

I had been researching this for about 6 weeks and then it came time to create the Gooseberry Punch.  I knew I was going to have to make a special trip to find them.  I knew I could find them at Trader Joe's due to many recommendations from people.  I got to Trader Joe's and searched the produce area and couldn't find them, so I asked an employee.  She stated they didn't get any in that day.  I went back out to my car and had to call my mom to google for me because the signal was so slow that I couldn't pull up any websites on my phone.  She called the other Trader Joe's in the area (which was 45 minutes away) to see if they had anything.  Whoever she talked to said they did have them in stock, and they'd hold a package for me, and I just had to go to the store, tell any employee my name, and they'd grab them for me.  I journeyed over in rush hour traffic and arrived at the store.  It took me 20 minutes to find a parking spot, as this location shares a parking lot with a Shake Shack, an urgent care, a nail salon, Orange Theory, and a few other businesses.  It felt like some version of the Hunger Games circling this parking lot to find a spot.  It was such a small parking lot that you really couldn't be out of the way and had to keep circling.  I finally was successful in snagging a parking spot and walked in to find an employee who wasn't busy.  She went to the back, and I waited a while, and I was starting to get nervous that she had forgotten about me.  Eventually she came back, she asked who I talked to, and I explained how I didn't talk to anyone, my mom did, and she explained that they had sold out of gooseberries already for the day and how they are "case capped" so each Trader Joe's is only getting one a day which is 12 individual plastic cases.  I left feeling disappointed and annoyed that I drove all that way and didn't have gooseberries.  Upon further research, Trader Joe's carries Cape Gooseberries and there seems to be an online debate on whether those count as "real" gooseberries or some sort of ground fruit.   Have no fear though, my mom found some canned gooseberries on Amazon and ordered them while I was on my trek home so they could arrive at my house in time to make this. 

Skipping ahead to us making Gooseberry Punch, we opened the can and decided to try them before we made the puree.  We opened the can, and they smelled like olives, which aren't my favorite thing.  My friend, Amber, and I tried them at the same time and neither of us were fans.  The skin has a bit of texture which was an odd sensation, and they are not sweet at all.  They aren't ever going to be my first choice of berry, but it wasn't terrible.  I will admit I'm not a canned food fan in general because of what it does to the texture, so I'd still be open to trying a fresh berry! 

If you have any information or experience with gooseberries, I would love to hear about it!  Please send me a message on your Social Media platform of choice!