Doing some prep work

I spent a long time yesterday removing labels from my stash of bottles; I've been collecting pretty or nice-shaped ones to use when I decant my liqueurs, and I'm getting to the stage where I need to bottle some, so this was the first step on the way.

Yukky, backbreaking work, but today's effort is much easier: I've washed 49 various wine, fortified wine, and spirit bottles (plus a few jam jars), and was rinsing them all when I realised I'd emptied the immersion heater of hot water.

I'm just letting it heat up again before finishing the rinsing process, and then I will sterilise a few so I can finally deal with the long-overdue limoncello that's sitting in my cupboard.

If it sounds really bad that I've used up an immersion-heater's worth of hot water, I apologise: we have a small one under the kitchen sink, as the run from the big one in the laundry meant we would have wasted a lot of water just waiting for it to run hot before we even started using any water.

The great thing about a tiny immersion heater is that you get hot water again really quickly.

But in the meantime, I'm using this as an excuse to have another cup of tea!

Hedgerow liqueurs

I'm not going to post about them (properly) now, because I'm drained after a week of thinking building work in French, and collecting leaves when it's 32°C in full sun wasn't the most sensible thing to do!

We had a minor thunder storm last night, so I wanted to get some more ingredients in case it rains again this evening.

In honour of St George's Day, I have made an oak leaf infusion. Also: may flower, nettle and walnut leaf. The walnut leaf is supposed to be made on St John's Day, but I decided to try an early batch as all the other leaf recipes recommend young leaves.

We shall see...

I also have enough leftovers for stir-fried nettles in chilli oil with garlic and ginger, so I don't even have to think about what to have for dinner!

Not alcohol related...

Honest!

I'm posting about it on this blog, because I don't want to have to tell David if I don't have to [and because it will affect my foraging activities, obviously!]...

Like an idiot, I turned my ankle while I was out eyeing up oak leaves to make an oak leaf infusion. I felt like a twit, but thought nothing more of it.

Carried on as normal, and it only occurred to me about four hours later that my foot was feeling really quite achy. I assumed that it was from standing on my feet most of the day [like the "kill me" sensation of too much shopping], so changed shoes a couple of times whilst doing the washing up and vacuuming.

It was only when I was on the third pair of shoes [pink "mock Crocs" (ShoeZone's £1.99 version of a Croc) in case you are wondering] and couldn't get the left one on that I realised my foot was quite swollen and more painful.

I'm being sensible [now I've realised I've done some damage], and look probably as uncomfortable as I feel with my foot on a chair with an old t-shirt tying a bag of ice to my foot!

Not osteopath-recommended posture, I'm sure, so I'm going to admit defeat and get a quick shower in and then turn in for an early night.

I might have to take up Isabelle on her kind offer to do some shopping for me if it isn't any better in the morning.

I'm doing what I can: Rest, Ice, [can't do Compression because it's already swollen], Elevation and 200c Arnica. If I have an early night, hopefully I will cope with the rigours of tomorrow [plumber, electrician, joiners & maybe a plaquiste or builder to wrangle].

I think this could be a message from my body that I actually do need to do that resting that Guy, Chris, Elida & David keep mentioning!

#49: Lilac flower liqueur

Another triumph of hope over experience.

And another experimental 'brew': I was reading articles on the internet to try and find a recipe for the hawthorn shoot liqueur that M. Claude had told me about [he was very chatty about it until I started grilling him on how to make it, then went strangely silent; speaking with Mme. Claude on Sunday I worked out why - he only collects the twigs, she's the alchemist!]. Well none was forthcoming, but I came across an article on edible flowers/leaves which said that lilac flowers were edible.

So, emboldened by the experience of making elderflower liqueur [it's not disgusting, especially given how I hate the smell of the plant, and the smell of the flowers really perfumes it], I thought I would try lilac flower liqueur to see if I could capture some of the scent of a warm spring day.

My general principle these days is to fill a jar with flowers/leaves and then with gin/vodka/alcool pour fruits (a fairly rough-and-ready eau-de-vie, I think), and maybe a small amount of sugar or not, depending on how I'm feeling/whether I forget.

[When I'm dealing with fruit I two-thirds fill it, unless I don't have another jar, then I fill it.]

I think I recall reading that sugar helps set the flavours, or draw them out? I'm not sure; the Mad Scienticians™ don't put sugar in their flavoured quintuple-filtered vodkæ, but they are making a slightly different thing [probably].

And they don't forget about their creations for nearly a year [a reminder comes in the form of needing the bocaux for the next seasons efforts].

[Recipe Alert!]

So, back to the topic in hand: for this particular batch, I filled the jar with flowers taken off the stem, added a dessertspoonful of cassonade [looks like a cross between demerara and granulated sugars], and then filled it with 38° alcool pour fruits.

Now I'm sitting back and letting Nature work its magic, with the occasional agitation of the jar so that I can claim the credit! I may plan to decant it fairly quickly, but know that that will happen when it happens.

The hope-over-experience bit? Well that's hoping that the beautiful colours will also infuse the drink over the experience of knowing it will all go brown!

Two Steps Forward; One Step Back

Having successfully 'gone with the flow' earlier, and accepted that whatever light switch operated the spot in the niche above the loo was FINE, I'm now having another wobble...

I'm sure it's all stress-related [or possibly tiredness-caused-by-stress-related?], but I can't post about #51: Beech Leaf Noyau now, as I've talked myself into going and getting another jar full of beech leaves [and possibly succumbing to the temptation to do the same with oak leaves?], because I think I overfilled the jar and I'm not convinced I should have washed them.

People drink wine, don't they? I've seen how those grapes look before they go in to the vats; trust me, no-one is there washing them and checking there's no bits of leaf!

So I'm going to make another attempt and do a side-by-side comparison later when they're both done.

And try to stress less!

My "Secret Gin Cupboard"

This is actually a concept, rather than a fixed location.

Originally, it was just that: it was a secret [nice (hopefully) surprise for David at Christmas 2009], contained sloe and damson gin, and it was the left-hand half of the Basque buffet [cupboard by any other name] that's in the entrance hall.

And then it was no longer a secret, morphed into containing Quarante Quatre, Limoncello and other non-gin liqueurs and has since moved.

OK it's moved to another cupboard [until I'm sure that the cellars are bone dry (which the bigger one is most definitely NOT), it will have to stay in a cupboard. Although, I have high hopes of decanting some of my better efforts and laying them down in the space under the stairs...

I have fond memories of making sloe gin when I was a teenager: not so much picking the sloes [they don't call the plants blackthorn for nothing!] or pricking them [a right royal pain: we used to use pins and frequently caught a finger tip!], but the alchemical process of gin [which in those days I hated; my mother didn't believe in painkillers, so gin was the only remedy for period pains!], nasty bitter little fruit & sugar becoming this most smooth of drinks.

And not-at-all gin flavoured, which was a bonus!

Now I have a whole range of drinks in the making; some that suggested themselves [mirabelle, little-red-plums from the meadow, walnut (ripe)], others that I read about ["Taboo", coffee bean, green walnut schnapps].

I've a list where I jot down ideas and I'm trying to keep notes in a book, so that when I find a recipe that's a success I can replicate it and when something needs a bit of work I can try it differently the next time/blend it with another flavour/strength.

So far (keeping my fingers firmly crossed), I haven't had a failure.

Just some that I think need to steep/mature a bit longer [ripe walnuts fall into that category, and the instructions for walnut schnapps is to make it, decant it, then leave it for five years, before diluting it with vodka in a 1:10 ratio].

So why aren't I just posting this stuff on "Chez le Baron"?

Well, my beloved husband is an e-mail subscriber to my main blog, and how would I surprise him with my wonderful concoctions if he's already read about them?

[For that you can read: "how would I torture him by making him guess what the flavours are if he already knows"!]

His main guess last season for anything non-plum-family was "Quarante Quatre" (the only non-plum-related one I'd previously made); good try sneaky bloke, but it's not all oranges and coffee beans!

Oddly, he did spot the limoncello, but as I left the peel in too long, the colour has darkened so I need to make some more [and obviously need David to tell me if I've inadvertently ruined the flavour].

As for the "secret gin cupboard bit": that was from the days when I was making gin-based liqueurs but hadn't yet told him, so was hiding them in a cupboard. Now he knows about them, it's not longer a secret cupboard, but it's still a secret what I've got in store!

Still finding my feet on Blogger..

Again!

I have set up blogs before (and linked them together), but this afternoon it seems to be a challenge beyond me.

That's probably a sign I need my snack [radishes, in case you are interested], so I'm off.

Just a quick note: I'm setting up this blog so that I can post about the various liqueurs I make (some experimental), and hopefully in the future I will be writing about jams & chutneys.

I've already made 48 different variants of liqueur (some in tiny quantities, just to see); an odd hobby for a teetotaller?

Maybe, but my 'country roots' seems to be getting stronger as I get older.

That coupled with being unable to resist the "foraging" opportunities that life in France presents me mean that I'm often occupied with the alchemy of turning damsons into gin!