June/July Drinks of the Month - Gooseberries?

Red Gooseberries

Since I've become a quasi-stay-at -home dad this summer, I've developed a greater appreciation for our local farmer's market, and the opportunities it affords for distracting young children. Our local farmers market has an awesome stand that always has weird, regional produce. Last month, Wolf Farms had all kinds of stuff you would never find in the supermarket: I bought red and white currants, and a whole pint of red gooseberries. I had no idea what to do with any of them, but they were reasonably priced, and I like to experiment. The currants are too small to juice, so I've mostly fed them to the little man (he thoroughly enjoys them). But the goosenberries are good sized, and a great mix of tart and sweet. So I set to researching applications, and found a few good ones! Gooseberries are still ripe, so if you can find them near you, here are two drinks to try. One is little more labor intensive than the other, but... you can decide!

June: Gooseberry Margarita

One application for the gooseberries is to make a steeped syrup. Gooseberries have stems and tails that need to be removed (you can just pluck them off). Remove the debris, and crush 1 1/2 cups in a mortar and pestle. Scrape the crushed berries into a saucepan with 1/4 cup of water and bring to a boil. Add 1/3 cup of sugar and stir until it dissolves completely. Remove from the heat and allow to cool before straining the mixture of solids using a cheesecloth or fine mesh strainer.

Now that you have your gooseberry syrup, you're ready for some margs! In a Boston shaker, combine the following:

1 oz gooseberry syrup
1 oz lime juice
2 oz blanco tequila
0.25 oz Grand Marnier

Shake over ice, and strain into a coupe glass (I was lazy and served mine in a cocktail glass)
. Top with a splash of soda water and serve! The gooseberry adds a nice extra hit of tart flavor, and it comes out a really pretty pale pink color (the picture won't do it justice). Enjoy your Gooseberry Marg!

July: The Goose and Berry (a Dark and Stormy riff)

The other application for gooseberries that I found was gooseberry ginger beer. I've made homemade ginger beer in these pages before, but never with gooseberries! The recipe I found came from the UK, so there is some ingredient and proportion translation needed, but here is what I came up with:

Gooseberries a-roastin' (I used way too much
sugar - it was a conversion oopsie. Dang Brits).

Stem and tail 3 cups of gooseberries. Pre-heat your over to 400 degrees, and line a roasting pan with wax paper. Place your cleaned gooseberries on the lined pan, and cover with 2 1/2 cups of granulated sugar and a teaspoon of ground ginger. Roast in the over for 25-30 minutes. The berries will burst and combine with the sugar to make a syrup. Once the berries are roasted, place them in a blender with 1/3-1/2 cup fresh diced ginger (depending on your ginger-level preferences),  Add the juice of 2 lemons and 2/3 of a cup of raisins. Blend until smooth, and then pour into a large
saucepan. Add 2 liters of cold water, and briefly bring to a boil for 2 minutes. Remove the mixture from the heat, and allow to cool to room temperature. Stir in one packet of active yeast, and place in refrigerator overnight. In the morning, transfer the ginger beer into 2 empty 2 liter bottles, leaving at least 1/4 of the bottle empty. Place the cap on loosely and allow to rest for another day in the refrigerator before serving. The yeast should jump start carbonation, which will leave the bottles feeling full-pressured (so use caution when opening).

Once your ginger beer is done, you can build your drink:

In a Collins glass, combine 1.5 oz of dark rum (we use  Plantation OFTD overproof) with 0.5 oz lime juice. Fill with ice, and top with the gooseberry ginger beer (approx 4-6 oz). Serve with a lime wheel. Enjoy the Goose and Berry!

May Drink of the Month - The "Blade"

Two preface notes before I begin: 1) It is July, not May. I've been a bad online host for all of you. I will aim to fix this over the next few months, starting with today's original concoction. 2) I'm never letting Jonathan Solie name a drink again. He is bad at this game. With those minor concerns addressed, lets move on to a cocktail...

I was purging my spice cabinet last month, when I came across a package of dried hibiscus flowers. I had purchased them over a year ago at the local Mexican grocery, hoping to do something fun with them. Instead, the wound up pushed in the back by other random spice purchases (ras el hanout anyone?), doomed to be forgotten. But by a stroke of luck, I found them recently. And happily, I found them on a day when I was excited to be creative in the kitchen, So I made myself a fresh batch of hibiscus syrup, and all was right with the world. Like most steeped syrups, this one is easy to make - steep 2/3 to 1 cup of dried hibiscus flowers in hot (not boiling) liquid for 15 minutes. Strain to remove solids, and then add an equal volume of sugar to make a 1:1 syrup. Ann recently got roped into multi-level marketing (hello Tupperware - did you know they still exist?), so I benefited with some cool squeezy-top 8 oz bottles for my syrups. They travel well and fit into a mini fridge perfectly, so if you know any tupper-ladies or tupper-fellas (I feel so stupid right now, but that is the actual terminology in their magazines), I highly recommend them.

Once I had my syrup made, I had to decide what to do with it. Hibiscus is tart like a cranberry, with some sweet notes. Add the sugar, and you get something like cranberry lemonade, but with added health bonuses (lower blood pressure! other homeopathic benefits!). I decided I would use this for a sidecar riff (have I mentioned that I love a good sidecar

?), replacing Cointreau with the hibiscus, and subbing in Singani 63* for the brandy. The result is a striking red cocktail that is equal parts tart, sweet, citrusy, and earthy. All that was left to do was name the drink.

This is where the second disclaimer above comes into play. Last weekend, I was in Minneapolis for a wedding. I stayed with my friend Solie, and I made him a variation of this drink (using pisco instead of Singani, because that is all I could find in the Wisconsin liquor mart). I asked for his advice on a name. I knew that our Hispanic friends called hibiscus tea Jamaica, so I was trying to think of something along those lines. Solie had other ideas. That evening, we were watching the classic movie "Blade" with Wesley Snipes (after watching an episode of Community that featured the movie). And Solie, Mr. Creativity, decided that my drink looked like blood, and so he dubbed it the "Blade" cocktail. And the name stuck, because I want to shame him for his lack of effort. So check out the recipe below for the "Blade":

Clearly not my bar...

In a Boston shaker, combine the following:

2 oz Singani 63
1 oz hibiscus syrup
1 oz fresh squeezed lemon juice

Shake over ice, strain, and pour into a cocktail glass. No garnish required, unless you have a fresh hibiscus flower. But who has time for that?

*Singani is a Bolivian muscat brandy. It is similar to pisco, but with a little more fruity/floral notes (almost closer to an eau de vie). Singani 63 is the brand found currently in the states, imported by director Steven Soderbergh (becasue - of course).

I hope you enjoy your "Blade"!