gin aug 28

Depsite our best attempts at unusual flavored potatoe vodka (basil, chilli peppers, lavendar) we can’t deny the hundreds of years of great minds that have gone into crafting the ultimate flavored vodka – gin. 

Starting with our bumper 2010 potato crop, we distilled them into delicious, clear but potent spirits and then let several batches steep for a few months with a mixture of liquorice bark, cardamon seeds and juniper cones.  

The result?  A home made gin that rivals the store bought – less citrusy than the mainstream Gordons and Beefeater but more rounded and flavorful than our local competition 209 and Junipero.  Just a cautionary note however.. the jury was not an large, international, scientific alcohol body, but instead a small group of international alcoholic bodies (namely Karl, Steve, Russ, Jesse and Stuart).

Next year the juniper and liquroice will be from our garden as well as the potatoe vodka and olives.  Martini anyone?

potatoes sept 12

olives feb 5

hops aug 20

We’re not ones for travel guides and tourist maps so it stands to reason our hop growing adventure was also unplanned and self taught. As home brewers we might just slide into the bottom of the amateur league, but as hops growers we are so clearly novices, even the squirrels laugh at us. Now in our 2nd year here at the Drinkable Garden growing hops, we’ve picked up a few 101 lessons along the way:

• You can’t buy and plant hops whenever you want to – the buying season starts in March/April and is usually done online or via a catalog, or as in our case a local online home-brewers’ bulletin board. Our theory, other than to support the local, little guy, was that a cutting from a plant in a similar climate would increase our chances.
• For both home brew flavoring and gardening reasons it is better to buy several varieties of hops, and a good place to
  

  hops aug 20

  start is with your favorite type of beer. It can take 3-4 different hops to flavor a good home brew IPA and since that’s our brew of choice, we bought 2 Mt Hood, 2 Cascade, a Centennial and a Chinook.

• Prepare to be disappointed with how ugly and stick-like the hops rhizomes look like when they arrive, and to be surprised when they grow at such a phenomenal jack-n-the beanstalk rates as 2ft a week.
• They’re fairly idiot proof as long as you plant them the right way up after the last frost, give them loads of fertile, well drained soil, sunlight and compost.
• You don’t have (at least we didn’t) any way of knowing when and which variety will shoot for the stars so try and avoid them being shadowed by other fast growing spring plants (like our tomatoes). One of our Cascades hit 25ft last month while its brother planted 3 ft away is just now hitting 5ft. The
  

  ipa brew aug 21

  Mt Hoods are only just out of the starting blocks.

• You need loads of special twine, plenty of long bamboo stalks and a sturdy ladder. You also need to ask your neighbors if they don’t mind a summer eclipse over their yard or hops bines curling clockwise around their power and phone lines. The promise of future home brew usually helps with this.
• With an expected harvest of 2 ½ pounds of dried hop cones per plant you may need to pre-book some sick leave and stock up on your favorite hangover cure.

Even though the ice creams were all the same basic recipe – creamy, delicious and Jenny Craig’s worst nightmare – I did give myself the challenge of having at least one part of each flavor coming from our garden.  Turns out… not as hard as I thought… in fact I have a few more ideas I’d like to try this summer… but they’ll have to wait till I can fit into my jeans again.

The flavors on the table were (in order of popularity):

• Lemon and honeycomb (lemons from the garden, local honey)
• Fig and ginger (from last year’s fig crop out of our freezer)
• Rhubarb and basil (both fresh from the garden)
• Strawberry, lavender and mint(all fresh from the garden)
• Kiwi and chocolate (I had to supplement the kiwis due to our tiny crop this year)
• Coconut and lemongrass (lemongrass from the garden)
• Sweetcorn (straight from the garden – I couldn’t think of anything to pair with this delicate flavor)
• Mango and Jalapeno (with Karl’s famous jalapeno jam from our garden)
• Apple and cherry (from the left over apple mush after juicing)
  

  stewing rhubarb july 28

home made honeycomb july 29

apple tree feb 5

 1)  Prune the apple tree every year just as the new leaves are sprouting.  This will help it focus its efforts on big juicy apples instead of growing long, vertical branches.  We keep and trim down the branches we cut off – great smelling fire or barbeque wood after a season of drying in the sun.

apple tree aug 20

2) Peel, core and juice an absolute tonne of apples.   Please know that moment of applusion (the term for when you swear you’ll never eat another apple after spending the weekend up to your elbows in them) will go away slowly.  You don’t need to peel the apples if you’re making cider from them, but since we were making juice for the kiddos as well, I trudged on through peeling the whole lot.

apple cider apr 29

3) Pick the right champagne yeast and find a quiet warm spot to leave the apple juice cidering for the winter.  It turns out the timing is not as critical as some sites may suggest – we knew ours was ready for bottling when we accidently found it in the basement when looking for the camping gear at the start of summer. 

alcoholic apple cider apr 29

4) Try not to drink too much of the yummy brew as you’re bottling it.  By the time we waited for the dishwasher to finish sterilizing our second batch of recycled bottles, we didn’t need them!   

 Overall we are very happy with our first batch of home made alcoholic apple cider – light, crisp and mild.  Could use a bit more fizz but it’s aging nicely – a bit like us really.

camellia sinensis july 2

The science to making a perfect cup of tea can be incredibly complex.  It really is a beautiful art form, full of traditions, regional nuances, myths and legends.  Unfortunately here at the Drinkable Garden we live in the Instant Gratification World and have therefore reduced our cuppa making process to a simple, quick three step dance.  

1.  Pick the baby leaves off the organic camellia sinensis, wash them and let them air dry on a paper towel for a couple of days until they are limp. 

picked tea may 29 (black, mint, chamomile and lemon balm)

washed and dried tea may 29

2. Roll / crush them by hand and leave them in a cool dry spot (covered to keep the dust off) for a few weeks until they go dark.  I label them so I can remember which plant they came from, just in case there’s a difference.  

drying tea june 29

3.  Throw them in a tea pot diffuser (or bag), pour boiling water over them and enjoy.  

first cup of tea june 19

With the basics nailed down, I’m now going to work on the details… different rolling techniques… making green tea by frying the leaves… drying the leaves in the oven… adding flavors (lavender, bergamot from our garden)… different brewing techniques and times… 

… but for now, I’ll be on the porch enjoying my cuppa and my mag (azine) if you need me.