Strawberries are the summer fruit of the bar: blended with rum and lime into a Strawberry Daiquiri, frozen with rosé into a Frosé, muddled with bourbon and lemon in a Kentucky Buck, sliced into a Pimm's Cup. They are sweet, soft and red, and the one rule is that they must be ripe: an underripe strawberry tastes of nothing, and no amount of syrup fixes it.

Strawberries as a cocktail ingredient

The fresh or frozen fruit, hulled, used whole in a blender, muddled in a shaker, sliced into a long drink, or cooked into a syrup. The frozen Strawberry Daiquiri came out of 1950s blender culture and 1980s chain restaurants and is better than its reputation when made with real fruit; the Frosé is a 2016 New York invention; the Kentucky Buck is a 2000s San Francisco drink that treats the berry seriously, muddled with lemon and ginger beer. Strawberries are mostly water and sugar with a little acid and a huge aroma, and because the aroma is fragile, they are best raw or barely cooked. A strawberry syrup made cold (berries macerated in sugar) keeps the fresh flavour that a boiled one loses.

What it tastes like

Sweet, juicy and perfumed, with a gentle acidity and a flavour that reads as summer. They pair with rum and lime, with bourbon and lemon, with tequila in a Strawberry Margarita, with rosé and sparkling wine, with basil and black pepper, with balsamic vinegar in modern drinks, and with gin and cucumber in a Pimm's Cup. Frozen fruit gives a thicker, colder blended drink; fresh fruit gives a brighter muddled one.

How to use them

Hull them (cut out the green top). For a blended drink, use frozen berries and no extra ice, which gives flavour instead of slush. For a muddled drink, two or three hulled berries pressed gently with the syrup, then shaken and fine-strained. For a long drink, slice them thin and add them with the ice. For a cold syrup, a punnet of sliced berries and an equal weight of sugar in a bowl for two hours, then strain; it is the best way to capture the fruit. A slice on the rim or a half-berry on a pick is the garnish. Taste the fruit first; if it is bland, add a squeeze more citrus and a pinch of salt.

Substitutes

Strawberry syrup or purée, a half to one ounce in place of fresh fruit. Raspberries, for a tarter version. Frozen berries in place of fresh, in any blended drink and most muddled ones. Strawberry liqueur (Giffard Fraise des Bois) for flavour with proof. Grenadine, in a pinch, for colour.

What to buy

Fresh strawberries in season, local if possible, fully red to the tip and fragrant; the big, pale, year-round kind are watery. Frozen whole strawberries the rest of the year, which are picked ripe. A bag of frozen fruit makes a dozen daiquiris and costs little.

Storage and shelf life

Fresh: two or three days in the fridge, unwashed, hulled only when you use them. Frozen: a year. Cold syrup: two weeks refrigerated. Hull and freeze a glut of ripe berries on a tray, then bag them.

Cocktails with strawberries

The blended drinks: the Strawberry Daiquiri, the Strawberry Margarita and the Frosé. The muddled one: the Kentucky Buck. The long one: the Pimm's Cup. Every drink that uses strawberries is listed below.

Questions

Fresh or frozen for a daiquiri? Frozen, with no extra ice; the drink stays thick and tastes of fruit.

How many strawberries per drink? Two or three muddled; four or five blended; two sliced in a long drink.

Why does my strawberry drink taste of nothing? Unripe fruit. Buy fragrant berries or use frozen.

Can I make a syrup without cooking? Yes: equal weights of sliced berries and sugar, left two hours, strained. It tastes fresher than a boiled syrup.