Yup. It really WAS about 9am when I started thinking about a cocktail. Ha!! Only another mama raising her child without a resident partner or any family support will know that feeling. It is relentless - the 5am start with no lover's smile and maybe no text, tea consumed while writing lists and planning the entrepreneurial day whilst sorting uniforms, lunches, school notices and getting us showered and breakfasted and in the car by 7.15am. Quick shopping errand on the way home and by 9am, after traffic and chatter and Thai-K-pop whilst running through the metal list of all outstanding emergencies and the feeling of more being required than one human could reasonably give in a week, let alone a single day, I am making coffee but definitely thinking ahead for a cocktail when the school pick-up witching hour is done.
Sustainable and organic are more often applied to what we eat, rather than what we drink. And so I try to plan ahead for great sustainable alternatives to store-bought-chemical-filled crap that don't involve cleaning the juicer or the blender, cos we do that in the morning and once a day is QUITE enough!
And so I started with this. At 9am.
5 mins to pluck 10 anchan flowers (blue butterfly pea - Clitoria ternatea) in the bright Thai morning sunshine. We have dozens of flowers every day creeping over the side fence. Slice up 2 organic Thai limes and a few slices of organic Thai ginger. And get the wild raw Burmese honey out. Where do we get ours? We buy sustainably sourced, wild, raw honey through Baan Tung Boon Lom Homestay. They get it from the Karen Department of Health & Welfare whose mobile midwives collect it from the mountains along the Thai-Burma border, and who use the proceeds for medical supplies for indigenous & refugee pregnant and new mothers.
It goes into a 1 litre glass bottle in roughly this proportion.
I add boiling water.
Let it cool until the glass bottle is cool enough to touch, and then put it, as is, into the fridge for the rest of the day.
When Miss 13 going on 14 and I crawl in the door in the late afternoon-early-evening-heat, she gets the pristine version and mommy's comes with a very substantial 'splosh' of vodka in it. Refreshing, relaxing, delicious.
I love that it is seriously anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, and full of anti-cancer and neuron-nourishing flavenoids. I love that the whole jug costs me less than 10 baht (USD $0.30) and takes only 10 mins to make. Vodka optional and obviously changes mommy's cost factor, depending whether you choose a Russian cheapie or are a Grey Goose girl. :)
But ALL NATURAL. ORGANIC. SUSTAINABLE. EASY.
To take it the last step to "pure", substitute commercial vodka for the local 'Lao Khao' - a clear white spirit made from either corn or rice, or both. Taste can range from paint-stripper-strong to actually surprisingly drinkable, although astoundingly potent. But guaranteed chemical free and supporting an enterprising local, somewhere. :)
Cheers. Or, as we say, in Dutch: Proost!
Or locally here in Thai, ไชโย (Chok-dii).
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