Thank you to everyone who submitted their best cocktail/mocktail recipes to our Mixology Masters contest. After much deliberation (and taste tests), below are our three contest winners. Congratulations, happy sipping, and happy Memorial Day weekend!

Cocktail by Diana D.

Fizzy Floral Summer Tea | Secret ingredient: Lavender DRY Soda

Ingredients

1 oz. vodka
1 earl grey tea bag
1 part fresh-squeezed lemonade
2 parts Lavender DRY Soda
(optional) simple syrup, to taste
Serve: rocks glass

Directions
- Infuse tea into vodka for approximately 15 minutes
- Combine lemonade and Lavender DRY Soda into rocks glass over ice
- Add the tea-infused vodka

Cocktail by Murl L.

No name submitted | Secret ingredient: strawberry

Ingredients
- 2 oz. 100% agave tequila
- 4 oz. Cucumber DRY Soda
- Juice of 1/4 fresh lime
- 2 finely chopped strawberries
- Dash of Kosher salt
Serve: tall glass
Garnish: orange slice and strawberry flag

Directions
- Combine ingredients in tall glass over ice
- Garnish with orange slice and strawberry flag

Mocktail by Jessica H.

Lavender Mock-jito | Secret ingredient: mint

Ingredients
- 8 oz. Lavender DRY Soda
- 1 tbs. freshly chopped mint leaves
- Splash of lime juice
Serve: tall glass
Garnish: lime wedge

Directions
- Combine ingredients in tall glass over ice and stir
- Garnish with lime wedge

A Splash of Danger

Created by Todd Kunesh | Peligroso Tequila | San Clemente, CA

2 oz. Peligroso Cinnamon Tequila
1 oz. fresh lime juice
Vanilla Bean DRY Soda
Serve: rocks glass

- Combine tequila and lime juice in a rocks glass over ice
- Top with Vanilla Bean DRY Soda

Señor Scott

Created by Southern Wine and Spirits of Nevada | Las Vegas, NV

2 oz. Casamigos Blanco tequila
1 oz. Aperol
Blood Orange DRY Soda
1 lime
Cinnamon salt
Serve: collins glass
Garnish: thin strip of red bell pepper, thin slice of lime

- Rim half of the glass with lime and cinnamon salt and half fill glass with ice.
- Add tequila and aperol and stir.
- Top with Blood Orange DRY Soda and stir once.
- Garnish with red bell pepper and slice of lime.

Have a Good Bay

Created by Jair Bustillos | Back Bar USA Mixology Division | Las Vegas, NV

1 1/2 oz. Lemongrass-infused Bombay Sapphire East Gin
1/2 oz. Basil gomme syrup
1/2 oz. fresh lemon juice
2 oz. Cucumber DRY Soda
Serve: rocks glass
Garnish: Japanese cucumber slice

- Mix gin, gomme syrup, and lemon juice in cocktail shaker with ice.
- Shake and strain into rocks glass half-filled with ice.
- Top with Cucumber DRY Soda and garnish with Japanese cucumber slice.

Real Russian Bouquet

Created by Premiere Distillery | Illiois

2 oz. Real Russian
1 oz. elderflower liquer
Lavender DRY Soda
1/2 oz. lemon juice
Serve: martini glass
Garnish: fresh flower

- Combine ingredients in cocktail shaker over ice and shake
- Strain into martini glass and garnish with fresh flower

The Crazy 8

Created by Pomegranate Bistro | Redmond, WA

1/2 oz. St. Germaine Liquor
1/2 oz. Hendrick’s Gin
1 1/2 oz. Limoncello (we suggest Finamoré limoncello)
1/2 a passion fruit’s-worth of muddled seeds
Cucumber DRY Soda
Serve: tall glass
Garnish: thinly sliced cucumber, sliced lengthwise

- Combine ingredients in tall glass over ice
- Garnish with thinly sliced cucumber

We come across a lot of amazing stuff on the internet every day and always make sure to pass it along on Twitter and Facebook. However, some of that amazing stuff really rises above the rest. With that, here are the top five things we found and shared this month in food, design, green, creativity and more.

Monk’s Meats: A Vegetarian Butcher Makes a Case for Wheat Meat

Liza de Guia’s Food. Curated. brings us the story of Monk’s Meats, a vegetarian butcher shop specializing in seitan – or “wheat meat”. Composed of whole, fresh, raw ingredients, the driving force behind Chris Kim and Rebecca Lopez-Howes’ business is the simple phrase Fresh Food. Tastes Good. The process behind their craft is tedious, fascinating and mesmerizing, making this piece well worth a watch.

Bicycle Drive-In Cafe Lets Riders Drink on the Go

As part of a larger plan to better accommodate its growing cyclist community, Zurich’s city council has installed drive-in bicycle tables at one of the most popular cafes in town. These innovative tables allow cyclists to ride right into the cafe setting and use their bikes as seats. An excellent blend of city planning, innovation and design.

The Fine Art of Coffee Portraiture

Working for hours alone in the kitchen of a hotel with an espresso machine at his disposal, barista Mike Breach discovered something fascinating about himself : he was extremely talented at making portraits in the foam and crema of milky espresso drink. This video richly highlights Mike’s work and will probably make you pine for a coffee break of your own.

GIF Tutorial: Essential Knife Skills With a Mission Chinese Cook

Most people think they know their way around a knife in the kitchen, but Henry Molina, a cook at Mission Chinese Food – one of NYC’s best restaurants – is here to school you on exactly how pros handle their blades. The best part? The tutorial is entirely in GIF form! It’s like cooking school for the Tumblr/Reddit generation.

The Top Locavore States in the U.S.

With spring upon us, farmers markets are starting to come on in full force, and weekends across America consist of eager locavores making their way to peruse the bounty of the local land. Strolling of the Heifers, a local food advocacy group, has ranked all 50 states in its annual Locavore Index, which shows each state’s commitment to local food. Think you know where your state ranks? Give the list a read; the results may surprise you!

Tinkering with DRY’s Store Locator for any length of time, you’ll find DRY Soda carried in some pretty amazing independent cafes, restaurants, grocery stores and more. Each of these places has a story, so we’ve set out to bring you the best of these entrepreneurial endeavors to you in Retailer Tales.

Today’s Tale: Sizzle Pie

Chatting with: Bob Peyton, Director of Operations

Location: Portland, OR

Specialty: Metal, pizza, pizza, metal

In Portland’s Central Eastside, featured on USA Today‘s 10 best neighborhoods that tourists haven’t found yet, there’s a combination of loud, delicious, and ridiculous seriousness going on for most hours of the day. It’s Matt Jacobson and Mikey McKennedy’s  pizza shop Sizzle Pie and, well, turns out it’s a combination of a lot of things.

After seeing a need for better nightlife in this particular part of Portland, Matt and Mikey decided that they “wanted to bring New York style with Northwest sensibility” by creating their pizza spot, according to Bob Peyton, SP’s Director of Operations. Throw in 365 days/late nights a year of pizza, and you’ve got yourself a better nightlife indeed.

As Bob points out, Matt and Mike have long been heavily influenced by music and therefore chose to infuse it as a core part of Sizzle Pie’s personality. “The tie with music and these guys runs deep. Matt is a record label owner and Mikey has been in the music scene for a long time, so it was a pretty natural integration,” Bob says. Because of this fact, aside from the delicious smell of local pizza, you’ll be greeted at Sizzle Pie with a healthy serving of metal, punk, rap, and whatever else is on the staff’s iPods or in the carefully curated jukebox.

Music is infused all the way down into the Sizzle Pie menu as well, featuring pies such as the Ace of Spades (pepperöni) or The Germs-alicious Lexicon Devil (Spicy Aardvark blended red sauce, fresh jalapeño, crushed garlic and chopped green onion). The shop is the perfect combination of pizza and personal passions. “It’s great though, because it’s a place for everyone, not just a certain demographic. Whether you’re into metal or not, you’re eating gluten gree, vegan, whatever: the pie here is for everybody and that’s what sets us apart,” Bob says.

Sizzle Pie sources its ingredients locally whenever possible and, as previously mentioned, caters its menu to any and all dietary choices. Bob’s favorite? “I like to keep it classic: cheese with Sriracha.”

Passion, personality, pizza, Portland. What more could you ask for?

Keep up with Sizzle Pie on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and their website. Check out their shop locations: 624 E. Burnside St. or 926 W. Burnside St. in Portland, OR, with a new location opening soon in Eugene, OR!

To celebrate National Picnic Day, we’ve chosen the five top dishes around the country that we’d grab to start our perfect picnic. While we wish we could dine on all of these perfect picnic dishes at once, we can dream, can’t we?

The Stefano - Cardullo’s Gourmet Shoppe (Cambridge, MA)

Made with smoked turkey, speck, Pineland Farms cheddar, arugula, tomatoes, ranch dressing and whole grain Mustard on ciabatta bread, Cardullo’s Stefano is a wholesome companion with which to walk the red bricks of Havard Square. Pair this with a friend and a sunny spot on campus and you’ve got the beginnings of an excellent Boston picnic.

Shelly’s Vegan Wrap – Elephants Delicatessen (Portland, OR)

Featuring romaine lettuce, kale, sugar peas, hazelnuts, broccoli, grapes, apple & cabbage with Elephants’ Stackhouse dressing (carrots, apple, mustard, tamari, sugar, tahini, cider vinegar & canola oil) in a spinach tortilla, Shelly’s Vegan wrap is a fresh and filling meat-free picnic option. Elephants is a Rip City staple and an excellent way to mix it up from the PDX food truck scene.

Salumi Cone - Boccalone (San Francisco, CA)

When visiting the San Francisco Ferry Building, a stop at Boccalone is a must. The world famous Salumi Cone, a signature Boccalone staple, is the epitome of the company’s tagline: Tasty Salted Pig Parts. Let this serve as a no-nonsense base around which to build a tasty SF picnic.

The Picnic Sandwich - Delicatus (Seattle, WA)

Made with Black Forest ham, lettuce, tomato, shaved red onion, Swiss Emmental, & potato salad on toasted Scala read with dijonaise, “the sandwich came about from a discussion with our Chef Aaron Willis about what a picnic would taste like.  Eventually we decided this would be the best representation of a picnic between a blanket of bread,” says co-owner Mike Klotz. The name, story and ingredients leave little question as to why the Picnic Sandwich belongs on this list.

Bloody Good Salad – Dish Gourmet (Boulder, CO)

With romaine hearts, spicy buttermilk ranch, farm fresh egg, Long Family Farms ham & bacon, avocado, tomato and parmeggiano grana, the Bloody Good Salad lives up to its name and also eats like a real meal. Bring this along on your hopefully-not-snow-covered-unless-you’re-into-that spring picnic fling if you’re looking for a ton of hearty, savory flavor in your picnic.

To celebrate Earth Day, we’ve put together a collection of DIY upcycling projects you can do using DRY bottles, 4-pack carriers and bottle caps.

World’s Easiest Vase

Can’t get much simpler than this: just enjoy a bottle of DRY Soda, and fill with water and your favorite spring flowers upon completion. Thanks to the amazing @light_catcher on Twitter for sharing this beautiful photo!

Bottle Cap Christmas Wreath

Created by the amazing Ana, one of DRY’s retail specialists, this project requires plenty of DRY bottlecaps, hot glue, a foam wreath from the craft store, red fabric and whatever other decoration with which you choose to adorn your creation (in this case, a festive green bow). Simply attach the red fabric to the ring, then carefully hot glue all of the bottle caps on. Finish by attaching your bow with a small bit of metal wire, and voila!

4-pack Condiment Carrier

Dreamed up at several DRY Soda retailers, this upcycling project will make your spring and summer cookouts that much more convenient. After you’re finished with your 4-pack of DRY, fill the cardboard 4-pack carrier with condiments, napkins, cutlery and whatever else will make your outdoor eating life easier.

Bottle Cap Wind Chime

Inspired by the creations at KraftyKatreena’s Etsy shop (credit image to right), we found some wonderful instructions to create your own bottle cap wind chime thanks to Trina is Artsy. Check her blog for full details and be sure to share your final product with her!

Bottle Cap Tea Candles

The fine folks at WikiHow (credit image to right) have some excellent instructions to make bottle cap tea candles. Check the instructions out and create candles of all colors. These mini tea candles can add the perfect accent to both your indoor and outdoor festivities this spring/summer.

DRYspy with your little eye…

From 4/16 – 4/20, we’ll be posting daily shots of DRY bottles in various locations around Washington. Be the first to correctly identify the location of each bottle with a comment or @reply and you’ll win a coupon for a 4-pack of DRY to use at a grocery store near you. We’ll give a hint as to when each day’s photo will be released so you can be at your sleuthing best. Happy hunting!

Sharelle Klaus: Women entrepreneurs may hold key to healthy economy

KING 5 news interviews DRY CEO Sharelle Klaus* to talk about the rise of female entrepreneurship, with the number of women-owned businesses up 40% in Washington state over the last 15 years, and her experience running DRY.

Read the rest of the article by KING 5′s Meg Coyle here: KING 5 – Women entrepreneurs may hold key to healthy economy

_{*with a special guest appearance by Lennox, DRY’s German Shepard heartthrob.}

We come across a lot of amazing stuff on the internet every day and always make sure to pass it along on Twitter and Facebook. However, some of that amazing stuff really rises above the rest. With that, here are the top five things we found and shared this month in food, design, green, creativity and more.

Photo Series Shows Classic Food Combinations as Pantone Swatches

In his photo series ”Pantone Pairings,” Minneapolis-based designer David Schwen photographs food combinations that go perfectly together. Anybody that combines food and design is a friend of ours!

j.viewz Plays ‘Teardrop’ With Vegetables

Whether you’re a fan of Massive Attack, House, or vegetables, this electronic rendition of ‘Teardrop’ is quite impressive. Give it a watch and listen!

Mealku – Online Delivery Service Lets Chefs Shares Their Leftovers

Based on the idea of “share more, waste less, eat better,” Mealku is a homemade meal-sharing cooperative that lets people in the community cook meals for one another; it’s essentially the marriage of an anonymous potluck and delivery service. At only $10 a month, it’s a fantastic way to create better community while reducing food waste. Plus, it’s an adventurous way to explore new foods!

The Edible Masterpiece – Ida Frosk Plays With Her Food

Norwegian photographer Ida Frosk has a knack for playing with her food. In fact, she does it so well that she’s recreating original artistic masterpieces in food form, along with tasty original works. Follow IdaFrosk on Instagram and jump in on the action yourself.

Coffeetivity – Ambient Sounds to Boost Your Workday Creativity

Some people need absolute silence to do their best work, while others require music to break up the monotony. A third party of worker bee thrives when in an active, moving environment such as a coffee shop, and that’s exactly what Coffeetivity brings. Coffeetivity plays ambient coffee shop background noise – undecipherable chatter, clinking dishware, laptop pecking – and is best utilized when played slightly quieter than any music to which you may want to listen. Give it a try and see if it works for you!

Strangers No More: Grubwithus Creates Social Media Powered Dinner Parties to Meet Neighbors and Future Friends

The ultimate irony of our technological lives these days is that, while every technology seems to try and connect us, that same technology often sequesters us to having our noses in our phones on the bus instead of getting to know our neighbors. That’s where Grubwithus shines: creating opportunities for local community members to connect at local restaurants around family-style dinners. While it’s not in every city, you can sign up for your city to be next on the list (we’re already on the list for Seattle!).

After a wonderful first week of spring and plenty of sharing from our wonderful fans, we’re pleased to announce the four winners of our Shareable Spring contest below! Winners were selected randomly from those who shared or retweeted any of our spring tips during the past week. A big congrats to the following folks:

Facebook

Brooke Anderson

Jordan Baker

Twitter

@FarmCityVintage

@ASageAmalgam

Thank you to everyone who participated! Cheers, to spring, cheers to you!