The Drunken Botanist: The Plants that Create the World's Great Drinks

by Amy Stewart

Mass market American beers

  5 to 9 IBUs

  Porter

  20 to 40 IBUs

  Pilsner lager

  30 to 40 IBUs

  Stout

  30 to 50 IBUs

  India Pale Ale

  60 to 80 IBUs

  Triple IPAs

  90 to 120 IBUs

  HOPS

  No beer garden is complete without an ornamental hops vine. Specialty hop nurseries sell brewers’ favorites like Cascade and Fuggle, but a good garden center will also carry an ornamental variety bred for good looks over flavor. The golden hop vine Aureus, with its yellow to lime green foliage, is a widely sold ornamental, as is Bianca, a variety with light green foliage that matures to a darker green, creating a lovely contrast.

  Plant hops in full sun or part shade in moist, rich soil. They grow best in latitudes of 35 to 55 degrees north and south, and they are hardy to –10 degrees Fahrenheit. The vines die down to the ground in winter; in a mild winter when the frost does not wither them, they should be cut back to encourage more growth. Expect them to reach twenty-five feet by midsummer and to start blooming by the third year. Once cones emerge, the vines get surprisingly heavy, so give them a sturdy trellis to climb.

  * * *

  full sun

  regular water

  hardy to -10f/-23c

  * * *

  The flowers are generally ready to harvest in late August or September. They should feel dry and papery to the touch and smell strongly of hops. Squeeze one that seems ripe; if it bounces back into shape, it’s ready to be picked. Once harvested, spread them out on a screen, preferably with a fan underneath them, to encourage air circulation while drying.

  JASMINE

  Jasminum officinale

  oleaceae (olive family)

  Surely the first person who ever smelled jasmine thought to make a drink of it. Who could resist that sweetly intoxicating fragrance? Jasmine does, in fact, appear in early recipes for cordials and liqueurs: Ambrose Cooper’s The Complete Distiller, published in 1757, includes a recipe for jasmine water that calls for jasmine flowers, citrus, spirits, water, and sugar. Similar recipes abound in eighteenth-and nineteenth-century cookbooks, and a record from the Great London Exposition of 1862 shows that jasmine liqueurs from the Greek Ionian islands were winning awards.

  The jasmine most used in perfumes and liqueurs is Jasminum officinale, sometimes called poet’s jasmine. (Botanists are in a disagreement at present over whether another species called poet’s jasmine or Spanish jasmine, J. grandiflorum, is really a separate species.) J. sambac, also called Arabian jasmine, or pikake, is popular in Hawaiian leis and is also used in Asian jasmine teas and perfumes. (Jasmine tea, by the way, is usually green tea sprayed with jasmine essence, not a tea made of actual flowers.) None of these are common garden jasmines, but collectors of tropical and fragrant plants have no trouble tracking them down.

  Jasmine’s fragrance comes several interesting compounds, including benzyl acetate and farnesol, both of which impart a sweet flowery fragrance with notes of honey and pear. Linalool, the ever-present citrus and floral aroma, is there as well, and so is phenylacetic acid. This last substance is also found in honey—and its by-product is excreted in urine. Perfume makers know that, owing to genetic differences in how we experience fragrances, about half the people who inhale jasmine will think of honey, and the other half, unfortunately, will think of urine. They’re both right.

  Jasmine is not a common ingredient in liqueurs today, in part because of its cost: the makers of Joy perfume love to brag that over ten thousand jasmine flowers go into a single ounce. Jacques Cardin makes a jasmine-infused Cognac, and two American distillers, Koval in Chicago and GreenBar Collective in Los Angeles, produce jasmine liqueurs.

  OPIUM POPPY

  Papaver somniferum

  papaveraceae (poppy family)

  This beautiful annual flower, with its enormous petals the texture of crumpled tissue, has been banned around the world because its pods produce a milky sap laden with opium. While the drug has its uses as a painkiller—morphine, codeine, and other opiates are derived from the plant—it can also be used to make heroin, and for that reason the plant is classified as a Schedule II narcotic in the United States. This has not stopped gardeners from growing the plant in violation of the law; it’s actually quite common. Only the seeds can be sold legally, since poppy seeds are used in baked goods. This loophole allows garden centers and seed catalogs to sell them as well.

  Perhaps the earliest description of an opium cocktail comes from Homer’s Odyssey, in which an elixir called nepenthe gave Helen of Troy an escape from her sorrows. While opium was not mentioned specifically, many scholars believe that the wine mixed “with an herb that banishes all care, sorrow, and ill humour” must have referred to an opium-laced drink.

  Such a potion continued to be used as a medicinal drink and surgical anesthetic through the Victorian era. At that point laudanum, a medicinal tonic of opium steeped in alcohol, was used to control pain and relieve the suffering brought about by a wide range of ailments. To relieve the symptoms of gout, King George IV liked to tip a little laudanum into his brandy—and then a little more, and a little more, as the highly addictive narcotic took its hold on him.

  An opium syrup gained respectability in 1895, when Bayer sold it under the name Heroin. The syrup was banned in the 1920s, and opium cocktails became a relic of the past.

  YOU’VE BEEN WARNED

  In this age of homemade infusions and bitters, it might be tempting to take a walk on the dark side with opium poppies. But the plant is illegal and its by-products quite dangerous. Don’t do it.

  ROSE

  Rosa damascena and Rosa centifolia

  rosaceae (rose family)

  Red Roses do strengthen the Heart, the Stomach, and the Liver, and the retentive Faculty. They mitigate the Pains that arise from Heat, assuage Inflammations, procure Rest and Sleep, stay both Whites and Reds in Women, the Gonorrhea, or Running of the Reins, and Fluxes of the Belly; the Juice of them doth purge and cleanse the Body from Choler and Phlegm.” So proclaimed Nicholas Culpeper in his 1652 medical manual, The English Physician. He prescribed rose wines, rose cordials, and rose syrups for a long list of alarming ailments.

  Roses are ancient plants that first appeared in the fossil record about forty million years ago. The fragrant garden roses we know today have traveled to Europe from China and the Near East in the last few thousand years. The most popular rose for liqueurs, the fragrant damask rose Rosa damascena, came from Syria, where it was being distilled for perfume. European botanists brought it into cultivation as a garden rose and to use in their strange medical preparations, but the Middle East remained the center of rose perfume and rose water production.

  Damask roses, with romantic names like Comte de Chambord and Panachée de Lyon, tend to be lush, round, open and highly fragrant flowers with tightly packed petals in shades of pink, rose, and white. Cabbage roses, R. centifolia, were developed by Dutch botanists in the seventeenth century for their strong fragrance. The light pink Fantin-Latour is one of the best-known varieties of perfumed cabbage roses.

  Most early recipes for rose petal liqueurs, like Culpeper’s, called for a maceration of aromatic rose petals, sugar, and fruit in brandy. Rose water, the watery part of the steam distillation of rose petals that is left behind after the essential oil is removed, is a traditional ingredient in Middle Eastern cuisine.

  Lately rose water has become popular as a cocktail ingredient, usually sprayed on the surface of a drink. And a few high-quality rose petal liqueurs are produced in Europe and the United States, including the French Distillerie Miclo’s fine liqueur of macerated rose petals, and Crispin’s Rose Liqueur, made with an apple spirit base in northern California. The Bols liqueur Parfait Amour claims rose petals as one of its ingredients, along with violets, orange peel, almond, and vanilla. Hendrick’s Gin includes a damask rose essence added after the distillation process, along with cucumber
, to give it a garden bouquet.

  A much less showy species, the eglantine or sweet briar rose R. rubiginosa, is grown not for its flowers but for the fruit, called rose hips, that remain after the petals have dropped off the plant. Rose hips are a good source of vitamin C and have been used to make teas, syrups, jams, and wine. An eglantine eau-de-vie is made by a few distilleries in Alsace, and a Hungarian brandy called Pálinka is made from them. Rose hip schnapps and liqueurs also turn up; for instance, the Chicago distillery Koval makes a rose hip liqueur.

  SAFFRON

  Crocus sativus

  iridaceae (iris family)

  For such an ancient and important spice, saffron is surprisingly difficult to keep alive, much less harvest. The crocus that we know today as saffron is a triploid—meaning that it has three sets of chromosomes instead of two—and it is sterile. It can only reproduce by creating more corms (a bulblike structure), never by setting seed. It is probably a mutant that has been continuously cultivated since about 1500 BC.

  Each corm produces just one purple flower during a two-week period in the fall. That flower opens to reveal the precious three-part red stigma we know as threads of saffron. It takes four thousand flowers to gather just an ounce of saffron. Every few years, the corms must be dug up, divided, and replanted to ensure a good harvest. (Although saffron crocus blooms in the autumn, it must never be confused with the autumn crocus, Colchicum autumnale, which is highly toxic.)

  Saffron is rich in flavor and aroma compounds. Its bitterness comes primarily from picrocrocin, which breaks down after it is harvested and dries to an oil called safranal. This substance is of great interest to scientists, who find that saffron’s long use as a medical herb is not without merit. Limited studies show that it may suppress tumors, aid in digestion, and help scavenge free radicals.

  In addition to seasoning Indian, Asian, and European dishes, saffron has been a flavoring for beer and spirits for centuries. Archeologist Patrick McGovern believes that saffron was used as a bittering agent in ancient times; he worked with Dogfish Head to create Midas Touch, a drink made of white Muscat, barley, honey, and saffron, based on residue analysis of drinking vessels found in King Midas’s tomb.

  Today saffron is cultivated in Iran, Greece, Italy, Spain, and France. Worldwide production is estimated at about three hundred tons, and an ounce of saffron sells for about three hundred dollars at retail, although prices vary widely depending on the quality. (Top-quality saffron is the result of better growing conditions and cultivars; it is worth paying extra to get the good stuff.) Its orange pigment comes from a carotenoid component called α-crocin; this imparts a yellowish hue to paella and to yellow liqueurs like Strega. It also colors the yellow version of many traditional yellow and green Chartreuse-like liqueurs made in Spain, France, and Italy. The makers of Benedictine disclose very few of their ingredients but admit to an infusion of saffron.

  It is a popular rumor that the extraordinarily bitter Fernet Branca derives much of its flavor from saffron and in fact commands three-quarters of the world’s saffron supply. This may be nothing more than a tall tale. If annual production of the spirit is 3.85 million cases, as reported in liquor industry trade journals, that would work out to one-sixth of an ounce of saffron per bottle—roughly twenty-five dollars’ worth at retail. With a bottle of Fernet retailing for twenty to thirty dollars, it seems unlikely that it would contain such a large and expensive pinch of the spice—even with massive volume discounts.

  VIOLET

  Viola odorata

  violaceae (violet family)

  The Aviation cocktail is the Chelsea Flower Show in a glass, combining gin, maraschino liqueur, lemon juice, and crème de violette. And until a few years ago, it was impossible to make properly, because crème de violette had disappeared from the shelves.

  That changed thanks to the efforts of Eric Seed, owner of Haus Alpenz, an importer of unusual and hard-to-find spirits. His search for an authentic crème de violette took him to Austria, where Destillerie Purkhart was producing limited quantities for special customers—mostly bakers who used it in chocolates and cakes. They select two varieties of Viola odorata for their liqueur: Queen Charlotte (or Königin Charlotte) and March.

  The sweet violet is a flower of a bygone era; a hundred years ago, they were widely grown and sold in nosegays in flower stalls. The blossoms lasted just a day or two in water, and were meant to be worn or carried for just one evening, so their distinctive fragrance could serve as a woman’s perfume.

  Sweet violets are sometimes called Parma violets, although a Parma violet is more likely a particular variety of a very similar species, V. alba. Violets are unrelated to African violets but are a close relative of two garden center staples, Johnny-jump-ups and pansies.

  The fragrance—and flavor—of violets is a tricky one. A compound called ionone interferes with scent receptors in the nose and actually makes it impossible to detect the fragrance after a few whiffs. There’s also a genetic component to how we taste ionone: some people can’t smell or taste it at all, and others get an annoying soapy flavor rather than a floral essence.

  VIOLET LIQUEURS

  Crème de violette: For straight violet flavor, this is the real thing: an infusion of violets, sugar, and alcohol, with a lovely deep purple color.

  Crême Yvette: A purple liqueur that may or may not contain violets. The version made by Cooper Spirits International (the same people who gave St-Germain to the world) is a blend of cassis, berries, orange peel, honey, and an infusion of violet petals, giving it a very different flavor than crème de violette.

  Parfait amour: A purple liqueur with a citrus base, like curaçao, blended with vanilla, spices, and roses or violets.

  THE AVIATION

  1½ ounces gin

  ½ ounce maraschino liqueur

  ½ ounce crème de violette

  ½ ounce fresh lemon juice

  1 violet blossom

  Shake all the ingredients except the violet blossom over ice and serve in a cocktail glass. Some versions of this recipe call for less crème de violette or less lemon juice; adjust the proportions to your liking. Garnish with the violet blossom. (A pansy or Johnny-jump-up would be a botanically appropriate substitution.)

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  trees

  Tree: an upright perennial plant with a self-supporting single trunk or stem made up of woody tissue sheathed in bark, often growing to a substantial height.

  Angostura | Birch | Cascarilla | Chinchona | Cinnamon | Douglas Fir | Eucalyptus | Mastic | Mauby | Myrrh | Pine | Senegal Gum Tree | Spruce | Sugar Maple

  ANGOSTURA

  Angostura trifoliata

  rutaceae (rue family)

  The manufacturers of Angostura bitters spent decades in court defending their right to the product’s name—all the while refusing to say whether it was actually made from the bark of the angostura tree. The late-nineteenth-and early twentieth-century battle set legal precedents around the world at a time when trademark law was still a very new idea.

  First, let’s address the tree itself: the angostura tree has almost as many names as the bitters that have claimed it as an ingredient. Alexander von Humboldt, a German explorer and botanist, described the tree during an expedition to Latin America that lasted from 1799 to 1804. He wanted to call it Bonplandia trifoliata, after botanist Aimé Bonpland who accompanied him on the journey. It has also appeared in botanical literature as Galipea trifoliata, Galipea officinalis, Cusparia trifoliata, and Cusparia febrifuga. The shrublike tree grows wild around the city of Angostura, Argentina (now called Ciudad Bolívar). It produces dark green leaves arranged in groups of three (this is where it gets the name trifoliata), and fruit split into five segments—a bit like citrus fruit, which are also in the rue family—each of which contains one or two large seeds.

  While botanists debated its name, pharmacists debated its medicinal qualities. Alexander von Humboldt wrote that an infusion of the bark was used as a “strengtheni
ng remedy” among Indians in Venezuela and that monks were sending it back to Europe in hopes that it could be used to fight fever and dysentery. Throughout the nineteenth century, the bark was described in pharmaceutical literature as a tonic and stimulant that could treat fevers and a variety of digestive ailments. Recipes for angostura bitters, a combination of angostura bark, quinine, and spices soaked in rum, were easy to find in medical journals of the day.

  The brand we know as Angostura began, the company claims, in 1820, when German physician Johannes G. B. Siegert arrived in a city in Venezuela called Angostura. He created a kind of medicinal bitters using local plants, which was sold under the name Aromatic Bitters, listing the place of manufacture as Angostura, Venezuela. In 1846, the name of the city was changed to Ciudad Bolívar in honor of independence leader Simón Bolívar. In 1870, the doctor died, and the sons later moved the company to Trinidad, seeking political stability. Still the “Aromatic Bitters” label bore the name of Dr. Siegert of Angostura, with the company’s new location.

  By this time, European nations and the United States were starting to pass trademark laws, and the Siegert brothers wanted in on the action. In 1878, they brought suit in the British courts against a competitor selling Angostura bitters, claiming that their own bitters were widely known as Angostura bitters, even though they were not made in Angostura and the words Angostura bitters had not actually appeared on their label until after their competitor had started using the name.

  The competitor—a man named Dr. Teodoro Meinhard—employed a brilliant defense. He stated that his bitters were called Angostura bitters because they contained angostura bark. While the manufacturer of a brand of bitters would normally keep the ingredients secret, the law stated that no one could trademark a name that simply reflected the contents of the product. Anyone can call their products by a name like orange juice, chocolate bars, or leather shoes; those names simply and plainly state what the item is. Meinhard wasn’t trying to claim the name Angostura bitters for his exclusive use—he was just trying to keep the Siegerts from doing so. His strategy was partially successful: while the judge ruled that his use of the name Angostura bitters was a clear attempt to defraud customers into buying his product rather than Siegert family version, the ruling also stated that the term Angostura bitters did not deserve full protection under English law.