living in the woods and making stuff

Today was a finishing old drinks and starting new drinks day. There is definitely something about drinks tasting really good after sitting for a while… for different reasons of course! I put up some raspberries in vinegar a month or so ago (when there were lots of them to pick). They sat in my pantry, imparting all their flavor into the apple cider vinegar and red wine vinegar that they were soaking in. Today I strained them and made the syrup for a “shrub.”

A shrub is an old fashioned vinegar fruit drink. I have found lots of different recipes and variations, and  the recipe that I used was from The Joy of Jams, Jellies, and other Sweet Preserves (as per usual). I strained the raspberries from the vinegar by passing it through a damp cheesecloth, and then I boiled the resulting raspberry vinegar with some sugar. (I am a little concerned that my house will smell strongly of vinegar and raspberries for a while after the boiling process.)

I tried a teaspoon full of the syrup straight, and it nearly made me choke it was so strong. I added the syrup to water, and it turned into delicious, uniquely flavored, zingy drink. It is almost a better drink for warm weather, so I think that I will try to bottle some of they syrup up and save it for the summer…

On the other end of things, I started a batch Vin de Pamplemousse (I like to think of it as pamplemousse juice as it rhymes nicely), a recipe from Saving the Season, my favorite blog on canning. The recipe, which takes about 40 days to mature, has been conveniently posted about 40 days before the New Year..

The recipe calls for a whole bunch of grapefruit, sliced and placed in large jars with some vodka, sugar, lemon, chamomile, vanilla, and a whole bunch of white wine. I made a single batch, which filled two 4 liter jars, and one 2 liter jar. The process was really fun, slicing and gently crushing the fruit, and releasing the fragrance of the vanilla, citrus, and chamomile. I am really excited for this (warming) drink to be ready!