spring time, everybody

I've been couped up in the pantry all through winter making do with whatever I could find - dried leaves, marmalades, vegetables... well, no more: spring is upon us, everything is coming into life.
So far no real berries of fruits have come up, still waiting on pins and needles for that.
No need to lay idly by, though, where there is life and something is growing there is something you can put in a shaker and make into a delicious beverage.

And so, in April I've sought out three flavours I wanted to explore: Birch water, stinging nettle and dandelion... and I have cheated a little: I've already made a few cocktails from these, with great success, I'm happy to tell. In this entry I'll tell you more about my experience with birch water, saving till the next one a recipe for a really amazing cocktail using stinging nettles, Chivas Regal and pink grapefruit among other things... (haven't really found a name for it yet, so I'll save it for later and use it as a cliff hanger.
...is it working, are you getting anxious to know more?, are you? well, well, are you?...)

Introducing: Jørgen, my link to nature

Before I tell you more about the cocktail in itself, I feel it's only right that I introduce to you my pusher, Jørgen, father of Lærke and Jeppe who are the owners and creators of Karriere. Now, Jørgen, apart from being the general fixer-upper at Karriere, runs a small organic farm somewhere far, far, far from civilisation, which makes him perfect in my eyes...
But there is more. You see -for those of you who are not Danish- in Denmark we have a long tradition of doing snaps at home. Originally, of course, it was thought to have healing powers, as almost all other spirits and potions originally was construed for medicinal purposes.
The way that you make snaps is basically you get hold of a neutral spirit or an akvavit, depending on what you want it to taste like, to which you add flavouring agents - usually botanicals of some sort, but really anything goes... ( I once saw a snaps made on granit! ...as I said: anything goes!)
Now it's becoming a more and more forgotten craft even though some are still toying around with it and my generation and the younger generation generally have very little knowledge on the subject. Jørgen, fortunately, belongs to a generation that went out and picked herbs and leaves and did fun stuff with it. Yes, Jørgen has definately made a snaps or two in his lifetime.

This makes him the perfect supplier of botanicals for my experiments: If he doesn't have in the immediate surroundings of the farm he knows where we can find it, and when I tell him about my plans for using this-or-that leaf for such-and-such, sometimes it turns out he's done something similar once... Of course, other times he just grins like he thinks I'm out of my mind, tells me he'll get it for me and gets on with his business.

Bleeding Birch Trees

So, a few weeks ago I asked Jørgen if he could get me birch water:
For those of you who don't know - the birch tree will suck up water during the winter and store it for use in the spring when it needs the extra power to bloom. The water is very high on nutrients and vitamins good for all kinds of things, which is nice if you are very much into that sort of thing. Come April you can tap the water by cutting off a twig about a finger thick. The tree will slowly bleed a pint or two through the following day, all you need is to collect it. You have to take great care when you tap it, though: The water is extreme sensitive: It must not be exposed to light and will go bad almost immediately if you don't keep it cold . Kept in a 5 〫c environment it'll keep for about 4 days.

Jørgen, being a thorough kinda guy, came hauling a container of 15 litres of the precious tree-blood just a few days after...

The water itself has a slightly sweet taste with a hint of 'green' and minerals - don't know how to explain it, I'll just say it's very refreshing when served really cold.

I wanted to do as little to it as I possibly could, first trying out just adding the water to a Bombay Sapphire sour - Bombay Sapphire for obvious reasons: its mild flavours will not overpower the flavour the of the birch water, but still I liked the hint of the gin botanicals to help support the drink, add a little depth to the delight.
The flavour was really nice but the overall experience was a little 'flat': A nice soda Sipphon is a beautiful thing:

::BIRCH WATER COLLINS

40 ml Bombay Sapphire gin
20 ml lemon juice
20 ml sugar syrup
carbonated birch water

::in a shaker with ice shake all but the carbonated birch water for about 5 seconds, strain into a Collins glass. Add cubed ice and top up with carbonated birch tree water. Garnish with a lemon zest and -if they're in bloom yet- a nice baby birch leaf.

Probably my favourite summer cocktail so far! Too bad the trees are not giving water very much longer. In about a week or so I'll have to take it of the menu...