Raspberry Gin

Harvesting at this time of the year takes about half an hour every third day, and the reason for this is that the Hollow is set up to provide little and often - to give us as varied a diet as possible. For most of the year that means just fetching the food as we need it, but once we get into Keats weather there's more produce than we can handle so it has to be processed for storage. Today is the turn of plums and marrows, both destined to be jam; later on this week it'll be the crystal lemons on their way to becoming a salted relish*. No tomatoes this year, but to my delight I remembered we had so many green ones last year that there are still enough in the freezer to make a batch of chahutenny.

One unexpected star this year has been the autumn (or "primocaine") raspberries. I put three rows of raspberries in last winter; Glen Moy (fruiting mid-June to mid-July), Glen Ample (early July to early August), and Glen Campbell Autumn Bliss (mid August to mid October). See? There's that successional thing again. I knew that raspberries fruit on two-year-old wood, so I wasn't expecting more than a handful of fruit this year. I also knew that Autumn Bliss was a primocaine raspberry - meaning fruiting on one-year-old wood - but again hadn't really expected much from it in the first year. Happily, I was wrong; it gave me half a pound of raspberries a few days ago, and it's only now coming into its main fruiting period. It's been giving me handfuls of raspberries every few days for a month or so now, and that's in its first year - so if you want raspberries but can only afford the space for a single row, my advice would be to plant primocaines.

So - too many raspberries to eat straight, and not enough to make wine or jam. What to do? I settled on raspberry gin, and since there are still raspberries about I thought I'd share the recipe. This joins the list of fruit liqueurs that I make, and it's basically a way of turning cheap spirit into something rather special. It's also something I can do in ten minutes, and thus gets my vote. Here's the recipe.

1lb raspberries
6oz sugar
4oz flaked almonds
1 ½ pints cheap gin



Put everything together into a clean, airtight jar, put into a light place, and shake daily for three days. I made half quantities, but probably a bit more fruit than the recipe said (since I could fit it in). Move it to a dark place, and write a reminder in your diary to strain the liquid off the fruit in three months. Sweeten the liquid further if needs be, put it into a pretty bottle (preferably dark glass, to preserve the colour) and leave it alone for a further three months to mature before drinking.*** As for the fruit and nuts you strained off, don't waste them! I'm torn between crumble, pie and ice cream...




*Traditional salted relishes like our Shorter Gentlemen's Relish rely on lactic acid to preserve them, but they're high enough in sodium to make a kidney specialist gibber.**

**Yep, I know they're called nephrologists, but that's a word easily confused with necrophiles. Easily confused by me, anyway. It's like naturalist and naturist, I always get those two confused; I think it's because both involve hiding to watch the birds. Where was I? Er.

***Bugger that! Ready by Yule, that's my motto.