It's spring here in the UK and already the blue bells are up, ramsons are delightfully stinking up quiet forest foot paths, and every excuse to take a walk is eagerly snatched. Most of us with an interest in wild food have a pretty good grip on what's on offer when this time of year rolls around. It's a salad lovers delight. Sorrel, tender dandelion leaves, ramsons, chickweed, etc. But something that most of us forget to do is look up and see the potential for some tasty booze infusions. So in this post I'm going to cover something most of us associate with autumn which is infused gin. All you need to get started is beech tree leaves as seen in the pictures below.
This time of year the leaves of this stunning tree are a light and delicate green. They can be thrown into salads for character or used to help bulk out wild garlic pesto to mellow the strength of the garlic. But for making a delightful gin to drink in the late summer all you need are the following:
A bottle of gin. Size is up to you. I use 1 liter.
Enough leaves to shove into your chosen jar. No twigs!.. For me the liter requires a huge jar crammed tight to make sure the flavor really gets shoved into the gin.
1 pound of sugar.
Around 80ml of brandy.
Right so once you have your material set up it's simple. Cram the leaves into the jar. You want about 3 inches of space between the leaves and the mouth. Now a lot of people prefer to make fancy sugar syrups to infuse but well... I'm lazy and it actually has rewarding results. I tend to just dump the sugar in which is why I leave space between the leaves and the mouth of the container. I then tend to pour the gin over the sugar up until it covers the leaves. Once that's done dump in your brandy, place the lid on, shake the heck out of it, and chuck in a dark cupboard for 6 weeks. Revisit every week to give it a good shake... and I mean a good one. Shake it like it owes you money.
It is important here to not use expensive gin or brandy. The fancy over the top juniper hit you get with a good gin isn't required here. But once you have hit that wonderful 6 week mark you take it out and run it through a sieve and funnel it into a bottle a presto! A smooth and beautiful drink to pass away an autumn evening. Now at this stage you will have a bunch of boozy leaves left over. DO NOT THROW THEM AWAY! There's more fun to be had here.
Most of us think that cheap white wine is only good for cooking... But for the more outdoor soused enthusiast we know better. Gin infused beech leaves have been sitting there soaking up all that loveliness and are just crying out for more use. So what I tend to do is pop down to the cheap shops, buy bottles of bottom shelf sauvingnon blanc, and rush back home to quickly dump it over my leaves in the jar. I then repeat the shaking process and pop the jar in the fridge for a week giving it a shake daily. At the end of the week I sieve it out and again presto. A gin fortified wine. Chilled in a small quantity on an August evening as an aperitif and well... It's hard to beat. I'm not a huge fan of waste....and I am a huge fan of drinking.. So this method always works a treat for me.
Well guys that's it for now. Thank you for taking the time to give my little write up a read. Best of luck with all of your spring time pursuits, culinary quests, posts, and projects. Looking forward to all of your amazing content. Keep on Steeming. :)
Image credits:
woodland trust.org
wildfood.uk
breathoffreshair.com
wildstives.co.uk