Scavenger's Booze

It is pretty seriously Autumn now. Don't even try to deny it, can't be done. But there are a few things that make Autumn fairly worthwhile. Apple and Blackberry pie is one of them, partly because it is an awesome pie, and partly for the ritual of collecting the blackberries.

Obviously you should never buy blackberries, and there should never be a need for you to buy blackberries. The month of September provides so many blackberries in so many places that there really isn't any excuse. You pick your spot; the roadside, the hedge by the train station, or the shrubs behind your work where your boss comes out to have a crafty cigarette and doesn't realise your there until you're right behind him - all are good places. You get out your little tupperware pot or old ice cream tub, and you pick and you pick until your hands are itchy and purple. Despite the thorns, there is something very satisfying about this experience. You are hoarding fruits for the cold nights ahead, you are collecting the harvest, you are using the hedgerow bounties that would otherwise have been wasted. You also sound phenomenally pretentious, but it doesn't matter as you've got a full tub of blackberries to look forward to when you get home.

Well, blackberries have been picked and the weather has turned. Unless you have been clever and frozen some, pie season is over. But there are still a few things you can forage and put to good use. Last year when walking back from CJ's car boot sale along the Kenilworth Road, I spotted some sloes.
I hadn't seen sloes since I was a child, but I remembered that the adult population at the time had used them for sloe gin. Naturally that did not appeal to me so much back then, but thankfully I have now matured, and my understanding of gin and gin affiliates has broadened remarkably.

It seemed a shame to waste them, so I went back with friends and carrier bags and we picked as many as we could get our hands on. I didn't have a recipe, but I did have half a bottle of gin at home, so I added sloes until the bottle was full and sprinkled in a little sugar to boot. I tasted it regularly until I figured it was about ready after 3 months, then strained it into another bottle. It quickly became one of my favourite tipples, but I don't think I made quite enough of it. That was not a mistake I intended to make again. That same sloe spot is now on my cycle route home from work, so once they started appearing again this year I began to stop off fairly regularly and managed to collect a sizeable amount. They are now all bottled up and all I need to do is wait. I'll let you know how it turns out in a few months time.

And yet I was not satisfied. Cycling home with a pot full of sloes I also saw trees laden down with elderberries, and my foraging instincts kicked in again.

I can't say I've ever been a big fan of elderberries as a fruit. Elderberry jam is undeniably rich and aromatic, but not particularly flavoursome. So what to do with them? Well, I mulled this over as I was peddling back, and decided that if gin could do things to sloes (which themselves aren't particularly tasty on their own), then vodka might do something for elderberries. And so it came to pass that elderberries were scrumped and vodka was obtained and Elderberry Vodka was made. As elderberries are much juicier than sloes they only took about a week or two to macerate, and now I have a big ole bottle of elderberry vodka for what was really very little effort. If you plan on making any flavoured spirits I would aim to fill any given bottle about half full of fruit and top with the spirit you want to use. Add sugar to taste if necessary; I've found that it isn't needed so much with elderberries as it is with sloes.

Here's a few ideas for cocktails using elderberry vodka:

Hedgerow Royale
1 measure elderberry vodka
Sparkling white wine

Put the vodka in a champagne flute or wine glass and top with the wine. If you chill both the wine and vodka beforehand then th liquids won't mix so much and you'll get a lovely graduated effect in the glass.

Elderberry Martini
1 1/2 measure elderberry vodka
1 measure vermouth

Shake over ice and serve in a martini glass

Autumn Mule
2 measures elderberry vodka
1 Tbsp frozen red berrries / fruits of the forest
Ginger ale

Put the frozen fruits in a tumbler. Pour the vodka over the fruits and muddle slightly. Top with ginger ale.

I'm also planning on making some chilli vodka which should be a nice warming winter tipple. I have a plan to muddle it with mint and serve it over ice for a temperature scrambling shot of crazy.

Wine and Cheese!

I mentioned I had gone to a cheese and wine tasting the other day, and I think some more detail is required.

I came to wine a little late in the day. I think I was too young to appreciate it when I first tried it, and then when I started buying wine for myself it was in an overly cautious way. My logic was that since I didn’t know if I was going to like it I probably shouldn’t spend much money on it in case it went to waste. Naturally, cheap wine tastes like balls, so I didn’t like it.

Through the hard work of my parents and friends with more sophisticated tastes who helpfully provided me with samples of decent booze to try, I slowly came round to the idea that wine could be pretty tasty.

Cheese, on the other hand, is something I have always been a fan of. It always played a big part in our partially vegetarian household, and more recently I’ve got into artisanal cheeses in a big way. Pete got me this book as a birthday present a couple of years ago, and it’s just a thing of beauty.

This dude catalogues a list of his favourite cheeses, goes to meet the best producers, sees how they’re made, and then matches them with the most appropriate wine. His passion for cheese would be funny if I didn’t almost entirely agree with him. My favourite thing about this book is that it is so clearly a labour of love that things like formatting and spellchecking have been slightly left by the wayside. The photos look like holiday snaps and even the paper feels cheap. It feels like a homemade book. I like it.

Anyway, so this guy used to run Paxton and Whitfield the Cheesemongers. This is a very good cheesemongers. The best, in fact. And it’s close by in Stratford-upon-Avon, so I regularly pop along if I fancy a particularly posh cheese. You know what else is in Stratford? Vinology, which is a lovely little wine and spirit shop with a tasting room upstairs. They make sure they taste every wine they buy so you know you’re not going to get a duff bottle, and it’s run by an enthusiastic chap called Matt who properly knows his stuff. And what’s more, sometimes he gets together with Ross from Paxton and Whitfield and they have a Cheese and Wine evening. If I was a child I would say ‘Yippee’, but I am a grown-up so I only say ‘Well that does sound like a nice idea. I shall certainly sign up to the mailing list’.

The latest evening was based on the theme of ‘Summer Softs’, and I was accompanied by the excellent ‘Cheese’ Louise and Pete ‘The Meat’. I don’t think I have a food based nickname yet. Suggestions in the comments, please.

There were six cheese and wine pairings. Here’s some of my notes.

Buchette Cendre with Domaine Pascal Bellier Cheverny Blanc 2009. Buchette Cendre is a goat cheese in the shape of a thin log and coated in a fine dusting of ash. It had a strong ‘goaty’ taste with a sticky texture. It starts off feeling creamy in your mouth but ends with a powdery finish. The flavour accumulates until it feels almost peppery. The wine cuts through the stickiness admirably. It’s crisp and floral but also has a hard edge to it. Notes of blossom and apple, but also has a peppery quality, like rocket.

Brique de Brebis with Quinta da Avelada Vinho Verde 2008. Brique de brebis is a sheep’s milk cheese in the shape of a thin brick – hence the name. It is a mould ripened cheese and the first thing you taste is the rind. It’s like a very strong camembert. The paste is yellow and sticky, with a remarkable farmyard taste. It was like eating the soil from a petting farm, but in a good way. The wine, I thought, emphasised this taste. It was pale, light and grassy but oddly seemed to make the cheese taste stronger rather than cutting through it. It also had a slightly numbing sensation in the mouth – Louise called it anaesthetic and I have to agree. I quite liked the pairing but I don’t think I’d be crazy about the wine on its own.

Cerney and Familia Zuccardi “Q” Chardonnay 2006. This was my favourite pairing. Cerney is another goat cheese, but you can hardly tell as the traditional ‘goat’ taste was very faint. It was creamy and moussey. I think it tasted of sour cream with hints of lemon and herbs, but with a sweet honeyed finish. The wine was caramel on the nose, and tasted of a clean version of honey on toast. Notes of hazelnut, butter and lemon. Despite the flavours it wasn’t overly sweet but light, clean and refreshing.

Mahon with Quinta de Ventozelo Tinta Roriz 2003. Mahon is a semi-soft cheese, yellow iwth a washed orange rind. It’s fruity and nutty, but a little overly salty for me. The flavour grows in strength until it’s a lot like a peppery mature cheddar. The wine (the only red of the evening) had notes of fruit-wood (cherry wood, maybe) vanilla, and cassis. Perfectly pleasant and drinkable, and very nice with the cheese, but it had quite simple flavours. I would have preferred a bit more punch to it.

Beenleigh Blue with Domaine des Trottieres Cotteaux du layon 2008. Another very good pairing. The cheese is a soft blue sheep’s milk affair, very powerful to start off with but mellows in your mouth. Very similar to Roqufort, but less salty and slightly firmer. Sweet, grassy and herby. The wine is the sweetest unfortified wine I’ve ever had, as (like many dessert wines) it uses grapes affected with Botrytis or noble rot. This one is lighter and much more quaffable than a traditional dessert wine. Strong, warm honey and flowers. I’m not usually a fan of sweet wines but with a salty blue cheese this is lovely.

Perl Las with Weingut Lang Chardonnay Beerenauslese 2006. Another soft blue, full fat cow’s milk this time. This was more moist than Beenleigh Blue, but I think more powerful as well. Strong savoury, meaty taste. Lot’s of umami. The wine is a dessert wine, another Botrytized one (Botrytized is the correct term, by the way. I looked it up special). It’s more complicated than I initially thought. Strong honey flavours again, but also notes of butter, mango, maybe cherry pie.

There’s a ‘Summer Spectacular’ all evening wine tasting coming up at which I intend to further my winey education. As a consequence, I may become, as they say, “squiffy”, but it is all in the name of learning and therefore absolutely necessary.