Heirloom Skills: A Complete Guide to Modern Homesteading by Anders Rydell & Alva Herdevall

Author:Anders Rydell & Alva Herdevall [Rydell, Anders]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3
Tags: Reference, House & Home, Sustainable Living, Cleaning, Caretaking & Organizing
ISBN: 9781510777910
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2023-11-21T01:00:14.409257+00:00

Drink Cabinet Classics

Just as every season has its flavors, every season has its drink. When you’re chilling on the deck on a summer’s evening, dirt under your fingernails, nothing tastes as good as a traditional British fruit cup. Cold winter nights in front of the fire, on the other hand, call for an Old Fashioned to warm us up. A gin & tonic, though, can be drunk any time of the year!

A well-stocked drinks cabinet is a must if you like a tipple, but it takes time and money. Thankfully, there are many classic drinks you can make yourself from ingredients that grow in your own backyard. Not only do they taste better, but you can also add your own twists to your drinks.

A Garden of Flavors

All you really need to mix up some classic drinks are a few glass jars, some spirits, and a bunch of herbs. A collection of herbs and spices is the mixologist’s main tool, and the more you have the more you can experiment. Once you’ve learned the basics you can easily adapt the drinks according to your taste.

Depending on where you live, it may be too cold to grow all the spices you might need, such as cardamom, cinchona bark, cinnamon, and vanilla. You can get most of these in the grocery store, but even better is to order from specialist spice stores where the selection of whole spices is usually better.

The range of flavors you can grow on your balcony or in your garden is almost endless. In addition, lots of great flavors can be found growing wild, such as St. John’s Wort, polypody, spruce shoots, and juniper berries to name a few.

You can read more on how to create a varied spice collection on page 166.

Infusions

When you add spices, berries, or other items to a spirit you create an infusion. This can be done with oil, water, or in this case, spirits that have the ability to absorb flavors. A stronger, more concentrated infusion is called a tincture. In simple terms, stronger alcohol dissolves fat soluble substances and weaker alcohol dissolves water soluble substances. The advantage of alcohol is that from around 20 percent strength it conserves flavors so they can be stored for longer, although the flavors may change or reduce over time.

How much flavor your infusion will absorb depends on the amount of spices and their strength, as well as the time you leave it to infuse. With gin, for example, you only need a day or two, whereas bitters need a lot longer to mature.

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