August in Brooklyn feels like January in Keetmanshoop, right now. Oven-hot. But New York also slings a bucket of soapy mugginess at you to make sure you will really, really look forward to September. And I do. Look forward to September.
There are compensations. For me, they are fruit. Beach plums are beginning to ripen. Elderberries (the ones that have not shriveled on the parched shrubs) are turning purple. And Aronia is ready, too.
I opened a 2020 bottle of beach plum gin the other evening. A maceration made in that first summer of pandemic. It is very good, but improved by a bitter strip of ruby grapefruit peel, with lots of dry tonic (Fever Tree Lite) and ice to make the glass bead. Perfect for this weather. This is the gin I refer to as Pits-and-Pulp, using the leftovers from a beach plum purée. I create another gin, too, that is redder and richer...
I explain that, with a recipe, in the recent story about beach plums I wrote for Gardenista, which you will find in that link. They are a wonderful East Coast fruit, and a very resilient shrub. I hope more people will grow them.
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Mmmmm. I have not been as adventurous with my gin mill. So far, I've made blueberry, cranberry, sumac and rhubarb. My favourite is sumac, but the berry gins are a beautiful colour and the flavour is... berryish. Rhubarb was a disappointment. I think rhubarb needs to be cooked or baked to bring out the flavour; rhubarb gin just tasted like ... pink Beefeater.
ReplyDeleteGin mill! Wow! You sound quite adventurous, to me. I think cooking rhubarb is a very good idea...
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