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

by Amy Stewart

  In Europe, black currants were involved in another notable legal tangle. Cassis was central to one of the most important court cases in the early days of the formation of the European Union. In France, crème de cassis was bottled at 15 to 20 percent ABV, but an exporter found that it could not be sold as “liqueur” in Germany because in that country, the alcohol content had to be at least 25 percent. The court case that followed in 1978, now referred to as the Cassis de Dijon case, determined that laws established in one member country must be recognized in another, establishing the principle of mutual recognition that paved the way for more robust trade among EU nations.

  CURRANT or RAISIN?

  In the United States, the word currant is sometimes used to refer to a small, seedless raisin. Those are dried grapes unrelated to currants in the Ribes genus.

  WHY DOESN’T CRÈME DE CASSIS CONTAIN CREAM?

  Crème de: In Europe, the term crème de followed by the name of a fruit refers to a liqueur with a minimum sugar content of 250 grams of invert sugar (a kind of sugar syrup) per liter and an alcohol content of at least 15 percent ABV. Crème de cassis, however, must contain at least 400 grams of invert sugar per liter.

  Crème: In the past, some very sweet liqueurs were sold as “crème cassis” or “crème (name of fruit here)” to indicate an even higher sugar content. There is no official legal definition for this term, but it is generally meant to convey an especially sweet liqueur.

  Cream: A liqueur with the word cream on the bottle, such as Irish cream, contains milk solids.

  Liqueur: In the United States, the term crème is, according to legal definitions, replaced by the term liqueur or cordial, which refers to any flavored, sweet distilled spirit containing at least 2.5 percent sugar by weight.

  BLACK CURRANTS

  The European black currant is a stiff, upright shrub that reaches about six feet tall and produces clusters of fruit resembling tiny bunches of grapes. They do best in rich, moist, slightly acidic soil with regular mulching, prefer full sun and regular water, and are hardy to –25 degrees Fahrenheit.

  The fruit appears only on year-old canes, which means that new growth should be left alone for a full year so that it can bear fruit. Pick currants while they are dry and firm; a mature bush may produce ten pounds per year. In winter, cut two to four older canes to the ground, and choose a few older branches to trim back to the point where younger side shoots emerge. If the bush stops fruiting, cut it all the way to the ground and wait two years for fruit.

  * * *

  full/part sun

  low/regular water

  hardy to -25f/-32c

  * * *

  Check with a local fruit nursery to choose a variety best suited to your climate and most resistant to local diseases or pests. Noir de Bourgogne is the variety most often used for the French liqueur, but it is hard to find in the United States and not well suited for every climate. Ben Lomond and Hilltop Baldwin are two good, vigorous cultivars. Native American black currants, including the clove currant Ribes odoratum and the American black currant R. americanum, both produce edible berries but have not been used as much in liqueurs.

  Red and white currants are also worth growing, if only as a cocktail garnish or a snack to eat right off the bush. The pearly Blanca white currant can be used to make a currant wine, and Jonkheer Van Tets is considered one of the most vigorous and flavorful red currants.

  KIR

  4 ounces dry white Burgundy such as Aligoté, or another dry white wine

  1 ounce crème de cassis

  Pour the cassis in a wine glass, and add the white wine. Adjust the portions to taste. A Kir Royal uses Champagne instead of wine; a Kir Communiste, made with a red wine, calls for beaujolais; and a Kir Normand mixes the liqueur with cider. For a lighter drink, mix 1 part crème de cassis with 4 parts sparkling water.

  CACAO

  Theobroma cacao

  malvaceae (mallow family)

  The cacao is the most unlikely of fruits. It comes from a tropical evergreen tree that prefers to grow within 10 degrees’ north and south latitude of the equator. When mature, it produces ten thousand blossoms in a season. Fewer than fifty of those flowers will ripen into fruit, and only if they have been pollinated by flying midges or particular species of ants.

  The fruit takes the form of an enormous pod the size and shape of a football. Each pod contains up to sixty beans surrounded by a soft pulp. The pulp is tempting to birds and monkeys because it is so rich in sugar and fat. The beans themselves are not as interesting to mammals because of their bitter flavor, so they get left behind to go to seed.

  Jungle animals aren’t the only ones who like the juicy pods. If they are left alone on the ground, cacao will ferment spontaneously. Spanish explorers were surprised to arrive in Guatemala and see dugout canoes filled with cacao fruit. The fruit would ferment until the bottoms of the canoes were filled with “an abundant liquor of the smoothest taste, between sour and sweet, which is of the most refreshing coolness.” The Spaniards came looking for gold, but they found chocolate, the next best thing.

  It is no small miracle that chocolate and booze arise spontaneously in nature. Even today, chocolate is made by fermenting the beans for several days to allow richer and more complex flavors to emerge. They are then dried, roasted, and cracked open so that the nibs—the meaty part of the bean—can be extracted. The nibs are ground into a powder or paste that, along with a little sugar, becomes dark chocolate. If milk is added, it becomes milk chocolate. And if the fat, called cacao butter, is extracted by itself and mixed with sugar, that is white chocolate.

  Today chocolate can be found in any number of syrupy sweet liqueurs. Unfortunately, far too many bars sell a dreadful concoction known as a chocolate martini. Drink these if you must, but there are far more subtle and sophisticated ways to enjoy chocolate spirits. Dogfish Head makes a cacao beer called Theobroma that is intended to be a modern recreation of an ancient Olmec recipe. Based on residue analysis of pottery dating to 1400 BC, plus some hints from the reports of Spanish explorers, their recipe includes honey; chili pepper; vanilla; and annatto, a reddish spice derived from the achiote tree, Bixa orellana, which is also used as a natural food coloring for cheese and other processed foods. The beer is earthy and spicy with just a hint of chocolate.

  A more elegant and modern use of cacao in spirits comes from New Deal Distillery in Portland, whose Mud Puddle is an unsweetened infusion of roasted cacao nibs in vodka, resulting in a pure chocolate flavor without a trace of cloying sweetness.

  FIG

  Ficus carica

  moraceae (mulberry family)

  The fig tree is a strange and ancient creature. What most of us would call the fruit of a fig is not a fruit at all, but a syconium—a teardrop-shaped bit of plant flesh that contains inside it clusters of tiny flowers. The only way that we could see the flowers would be to split it open, but diminutive fig wasps know how to crawl in through tiny openings and pollinate the flowers. The fruit produced by these flowers are actually the fleshy, stringy tissue that we see when we bite into that thing we call a fig.

  Confused? That’s not all. Some figs must be pollinated by a wasp in order to set seed and reproduce, but the wasp lays her eggs inside that fruitlike structure and often dies inside. That means that the fig contains bits of wasp corpses—which is not very appealing. But around 11,000 BC, someone noticed that some fig trees could bear fruit without any pollination at all. Of course, the lack of pollination meant they couldn’t reproduce, so people had to take cuttings to help them survive—and they did, for thousands of years.

  Thanks to the efforts of our Middle Eastern Stone Age ancestors, we don’t have to eat figs filled with the body parts of wasps, nor do we have to pick them out of our distillation equipment. Today’s figs are either not pollinated at all, or they produce longer flowers that allow the wasps to do their work without actually crawling inside.

  Figs came to Mexico in 1560 and have been planted in warmer climates all
over the world, with hundreds of varieties in cultivation. Dried figs have always been useful as a source of portable, long-lasting nutrition: they contain a respectable amount of protein as well as essential vitamins and minerals.

  Like almost any fruit, figs are distilled. A fig brandy called boukha comes from Tunisia, and in Turkey, a clear anise-flavored spirit called raki can be made from figs. A 1737 recipe for fig liqueur involved steeping figs in brandy along with nutmeg, cinnamon, mace, saffron, and licorice, “’till the whole virtue be extracted from them.” An even stranger recipe from that era called for boiling snails with milk, brandy, figs, and spices, and offering it to people with consumption. Even if it didn’t treat their illness, it would certainly give them something else to worry about.

  Fortunately, modern fig liqueurs are much improved: look for French crème de figue, fig arak, and black fig-infused vodka, as well as local eaux-de-vie made anywhere figs are grown.

  MARASCA CHERRY

  Prunus cerasus var. marasca

  rosaceae (rose family)

  In the distant, boozy past, a maraschino cherry was not an artificially dyed and overly sweetened atrocity. It was a dense, dark, sour cherry called the marasca that grew particularly well in Croatia, around the town of Zadar. That region was known for the practice of fermenting marasca cherries with a little added sugar to produce a clear spirit called maraschino liqueur. Cherries could then be soaked in that liqueur to preserve them—and that is a proper maraschino cherry.

  To understand why we associate maraschino cherries with Italy requires a brief history lesson. Given Zadar’s advantageous location as a port city on the Adriatic Sea, it found itself under near-constant attack and was under the control of almost every nearby country at one time or another. The Luxardo company, the best-known maker of maraschino liqueur, has a history that mirrors that of the region: founded in Zadar in 1821, the distillery was at the center of nonstop political upheaval until World War I, when Italy took control. Many Croatian farmers, finding themselves Italian citizens, did the only sensible thing and decamped for Italy, taking cuttings from their cherry trees—and their recipes—with them.

  After repeated bombings during World War II, the Luxardo distillery was decimated. Only one Luxardo family member survived; he, too, went to Italy to rebuild the business. Now many Italian distilleries make a version of maraschino liqueur, owing in part to Croatia’s war-torn history.

  In 1912, an early version of the FDA called the Board of Food and Drug Inspection issued a ruling that only marasca cherries preserved in maraschino could be labeled “Maraschino cherries.” American growers favored large sweet cherries (a different species, Prunus avium), and they had developed a brining process that involved bleaching them in sulfur dioxide, which removed all the color but could also turn them to mush. To solve that problem, they added calcium carbonate (widely available at plaster and paint stores in those days) to harden them. What was left was described in one American agricultural report as nothing but bleached cellulose “in the shape of a cherry” that was then dyed red with coal tar, flavored with a chemical extract of stone fruit called benzaldehyde, and packed in sugar syrup. This product, whatever it was, could not be called a maraschino cherry.

  But that changed, thanks in part to Prohibition. The temperance movement, working with soda manufacturers, campaigned against the evils of European cherries soaked in liquor. They championed the chemically treated, alcohol-free “American cherry, without foreign savor and without entangling alliances” over a “distillate of some foreign province, from fruit gathered by underpaid peasants, and handled and sold under conditions which would disgust the purveyors and purchasers of such products.” Thanks to their efforts, real marasca cherries in pure liquor become disgusting in the minds of Americans, and bleached and dyed cherries became wholesome. In 1940, the FDA gave up the fight and agreed that any chemically treated, artificially dyed batch of cherry-shaped cellulose in a jar could be sold as maraschino cherries. (To add insult to injury, the FDA allows up to 5 percent of the cherries in a jar to contain maggots, calling that an “unavoidable defect.”) Fortunately, authentic maraschino cherries, made by Luxardo and other companies, are available from specialty food shops today as an alternative—and they are easy to make at home.

  Sweet cherries are native to either Asia or central Europe; early archeological evidence points to both locations. By Roman times, at least ten varieties were in cultivation. Sour cherries have also been cultivated in Europe for at least two thousand years.

  Although cherries have been grown across the United States, they found their most advantageous climate in Oregon. One early pioneer in the Oregon cherry business was Seth Lewelling, who came from Indiana with his family in 1850. Lewelling was an abolitionist who helped organize a local chapter of a new anti-slavery political party called the Republican party. For his opposition to slavery, he was labeled a “black Republican.” He told his critics that he would make them relish that term, and he did it by naming a new variety of cherry Black Republican so that they would have no choice but to eat their words. The Black Republican was once the most popular cherry for canning and preserving, but now Royal Ann and Rainier are more common.

  HOMEMADE MARASCHINO CHERRIES

  Clean and pit fresh cherries (sour, if possible).

  Loosely fill a clean Mason jar with the cherries.

  Pour maraschino liqueur (or brandy or bourbon) over the cherries until they are completely covered.

  Seal the jar, refrigerate, and use within 4 weeks.

  A FIELD GUIDE TO CHERRY-BASED SPIRITS

  As with almost any fruit, cherries can be fermented and distilled in endless variations. Here are just a few worth trying:

  Cherry brandy usually describes a cherry liqueur, meaning a maceration of cherries and sugar in a base spirit such as brandy. Cherry Heering is a fine example; it’s flavored with almonds and spices. American Fruits Sour Cherry Cordial is another outstanding cherry liqueur.

  Cherry wine is a wine made from cherries rather than grapes. Maraska cherry wine from Croatia is the best known, and perhaps most authentic, version.

  Guignolet is a French cherry liqueur usually made from the large, sweet red or black guigne variety.

  Kirsch or Kirschwasser is a clear brandy or eau-de-vie fermented with cherry pits, which impart a mild almond flavor. Made in Germany, Switzerland, and elsewhere; sometimes simply sold as cherry eau-de-vie.

  Maraschino is a not particularly sweet liqueur made of a distillate or maceration of marasca cherries, usually double-distilled to make it clear. Luxardo is one of several distilleries making maraschino liqueur.

  THE (HYBRIDIZED) BROOKLYN COCKTAIL

  1½ ounces rye or bourbon

  ½ ounce dry vermouth

  ¼ ounce Maraschino liqueur

  2 to 3 dashes Angostura or orange bitters

  1 maraschino cherry

  Stir all the ingredients except the cherry with ice, strain into a cocktail glass, and garnish with the cherry. Purists will object that a Brooklyn is traditionally made with Amer Picon, a bitter orange aperitif, not with Angostura or orange bitters. If you have access to some Amer Picon, by all means, add ¼ ounce. Otherwise, this variation is quite nice and makes good use of marasca cherries in two forms.

  CHERRY TREE

  There are at least 120 species of cherry tree, many of which are not grown for their fruit. The flowering cherry trees on display in Washington DC, in the springtime, for instance, are mostly Prunus × yedoensis ‘Yoshino Cherry’ and P. serrulata ‘Kwanzan’, two Japanese species. Most cultivars produce small, inedible fruit or are sterile so produce no fruit at all. The sour cherry, P. cerasus, is incapable of interbreeding with sweet cherries and is, in fact, self-fertile, which means that it doesn’t need another tree nearby for pollination.

  Sour cherry varieties are broadly divided into morellos, which are darker, and amarelles, which are lighter. There are hundreds of cultivars of each, most adapted to a particular climate. The m
arasca is a type of morello not widely sold in the United States, but backyard orchardists can easily substitute another sour cherry, such as Montmorency, North Star, or English Morello, that does well in their region.

  * * *

  full sun

  low/regular water

  hardy to -25f/-32c

  * * *

  Cherry trees are sold on dwarf or full-sized rootstock. It’s important to choose the rootstock for the space available. Remember that birds love to pick ripe cherries off a tree, so a dwarf tree might be easier to protect with netting. Be sure to find out if another tree is needed for pollination.

  Cherry trees do require light pruning in late spring to ensure even spacing of branches; get advice from your garden center or agricultural extension office, and never prune in winter—it can introduce disease.

  PLUM

  Prunus domestica

  rosaceae (rose family)

  When Americans think about a plum, we think about variations on the Japanese plum, Prunus salicina. These large, sweet, red or golden-fleshed plums were the invention of Luther Burbank, the most famous plant breeder of the twentieth century. From his farm in Santa Rosa, California, Burbank bred an astonishing eight hundred new varieties of plants, including the Shasta daisy, the Russet Burbank potato, and the Santa Rosa plum. In fact, almost all the plums grown in the United States today are Burbank’s creations, hybrids of young trees he imported from Japan in 1887.