HUNTER-GATHERING: wild & fresh food

Wild Cocktails & Hedgerow Infusions.

I could never understand why my father insisted on picking sloes. Every Autumn the whole family would head for the hedgerows to fill our buckets with the small blueberry-esque tart fruit. My 7-year old self couldn’t grasp the value of such an astringent berry tucked away amongst such viscious thorns, but of course, I was a good few years away from my first sip of sloe gin.

Things have come a long way since then, both in terms of ingredients and methods.  The hedgerows have so much more to offer the booze cabinet than sloes, damsons and elderberries, there are flowers, wild greens and aromatics- even wood has a role to play. At Hunter Gather Cook, we always finish up our seasonal day courses by mixing up some wild cocktails on the top deck of our Tree house HQ. The key ingredient is you: get creative, have fun and by all means, make sure you do plenty of tasting!

Infused spirit or liqueur?

There is a big difference here, sloe gin, for example, is a liqueur. In simple terms any kind of infusion or maceration where sugar is involved in the process is a liqueur. An infused spirit is when you take your fruit, flowers or aromatics and add them to your spirit to infuse without adding any sweetness. It largely depends on what you want to do with the finished product: If you want to make cocktails, its always best to leave sugar out as you can add this later when mixing up drinks in the form of a cordial or simple sugar syrup.

Booze choices:

Choices, choices, choices! There are many hedgerow booze recipes that state you should use the cheapest supermarket own-branded vodka, gin or whisky. To some degree that is true, if you’re making a liqueur, the added sugar will help mask the quality of the final product. If you’re making a simple infusion then go for something a little more upmarket, as there is nowhere to hide! Always bear in mind that your final product is only going to be as good as the quality of the ingredients.

 

Vodka is certainly the best for most infusions or liqueurs. The main reason for this is because it’s a completely neutral spirit, it’s able to take on both light floral or heavy aromatic flavours with ease. For any liqueurs you can go as cheap as you like, but for pure infusions, a good quality grain vodka such as Absolut or Ketel One, will produce excellent end results.

It is possible to use vodka as a base spirit to make your own gin which is essentially a neutral spirit flavoured with a variety of different botanicals- the principal ingredient being Juniper. Other botanicals can include orange or lemon peel, caraway seed, cardamom, coriander seed, star anise, lemongrass, rosemary, bay and so on…

Gin can vary when it comes to which one to use- as its already been flavoured with various botanicals, its best used for fruits rather than delicate floral infusions. Cheap can be cheerful- its worth noting that Aldi’s own brand gin (which costs under £10) came second in the international spirits challenge last year, beating both Bombay sapphire and Hendricks. However, you can’t go wrong with Gordon’s or Beefeater.

Whisky is also best used for fruit such as blackberries, but also wood. Sounds weird? It does. Both whisky and bourbon can be infused with fruity woods such as Apple, cherry or plum. If you whittle down a couple of branches (remove the bark fist!), take the shavings and blowtorch them prior to infusing, the results are a delightfully smoky finish. The shavings, once removed from the infusion and dried out can then be used in the smoker for a whisky finish- thrifty. Again, don’t pull out the Oban or Laphroig for this, Famous grouse is a solid choice.

Infusing methods:

There are three different methods to go about your infusing, whilst traditional maceration will always be a mainstay, you can speed up the process with the other two methods using either heat or pressure:

 

1. Traditional Maceration.

A solid method and one which many of you will be familiar with: Take a kilner jar, half fill it with your ingredients and then top up with your chosen spirit. Seal and stick it in a dark place for anything from 2 weeks to 2 years.

2. Sous vide.

This method uses heat to speed up the extraction process and takes 1 ½ to 2 hours. Don’t feel you need an expensive sous vide machine and waterbath for this- a deep fat fryer filled with water and a thermometer will suffice- you could even keep a close eye on a pan on the hob. You will need some zip lock bags to put all the ingredients in for infusing.

Essentially what sous vide does is A) speeds up the whole process (allowing for plenty of room for experimentation) and B) It simplifies the entire process whilst removing any danger of losing any delicate flavours to the atmosphere. In simple terms, you heat some water to 40˚C, maintain the heat, pour your spirit into a ziplock bag, add whatever you want to infuse it with, suck the air out of the bag, seal and stick it in the 40˚ C water and leave for an hour or two. A great method for berries and botanicals.

3. Cream whippers & Nitrous oxide:

This method uses pressure to aid extraction and dramatically reduces the length of time down to 2 minutes. Basically, it’s a flash infusion: the Nitrous Oxide forces all the air out of the ingredients you’re infusing and the spirit rushes into all the air pockets which then drags all the flavouring with it once the cream whipper is discharged.  This method works best with delicate floral infusions such as elderflower or meadowsweet. Simply half fill the cream whipper with your ingredients, add enough spirit to cover and screw on the lid. Charge once with a NO2 cartridge and leave to stand for one minute. Remove the spent cartridge and reload, repeat the process, only this time, shake it for one minute. Finally, discharge the cream whipper completely, unscrew the top and then pour out the infusion through a sieve lined with muslin into a receptacle.

 

HGC Drinks lab on test day... 

Here are a few recipes to get you started with some different ingredients coming into season in the wild larder over the next few months:

 

Meadowsweet Martini (makes 4 martinis)

Method: Cream whipper.

 

Meadowsweet flowers have a wonderful sweet smell to them with notes of vanilla and almond. Meadowsweet has very high levels of Salicylic acid, which was originally isolated in the plant and produced the first aspirin- so this might not give you a headache if you over indulge!

Take 4 flower heads of meadowsweet and pick off just the flowers, discarding any stalk and place in the cream whipper. Add 250ml of gin or vodka depending on your preference and infuse.

Strain the infusion into a cocktail shaker with plenty of ice, add 75ml of dry vermouth and stir, strain into a chilled martini glass and garnish with a meadowsweet flower. Everyone has their preference as to their desired amount of vermouth, this is based on a 3 parts vodka to one part vermouth.

Best served sat on the riverbank where you picked the meadowsweet and enjoy while you wait for the evening rise to begin.

 

Rack em, Stack em and Pack em: Meadowsweet martinis lined up on the Treehouse HQ Birch Bar.

Bramble Whisky:

Method: Masceration for a liqueur or Sous vide for an infused spirit.

• For the liqueur, you will need:
• 1.4kg of blackberries
• 200g of white granulated sugar
• 1 bottle of whisky.

Simply place all ingredients in a large kilner jar and give a vigorous shake, repeat every couple of days for 2 weeks. Then leave in a dark place for 3 months before straining and bottling. Improves with age if you can resist! 

 

Blackberry & Apple Hot Toddy. (makes 2)

This is a great winter warmer once you have your blackberry whisky.

 

Juice of 2 lemons

100ml of blackberry whisky

300ml of warmed cloudy apple juice

Honey if needed (depends how sweet you like it!)

 

The Bramble: A Gin-based excuse to use blackberries. 

Ground Ivy & wild horseradish vodka for the perfect Bloody Mary:

Method: Sous vide.

Ground Ivy or Ale Hoof is a very common wild green, it has a pungent herbaceous aroma with notes of sage, mint, thyme and rosemary- it was originally used to flavour beer before the introduction of hops. Wild Horseradish is a very fiery root: The volatile oil, sinigrin, is released upon tampering with and capable of making a grown man weep. Both marry extremely well when infused to vodka, mind you, this really is only for use in a bloody mary!

• 2 handfuls of washed Ground ivy leaves.
• 1 large chunk of wild horseradish root chopped into £1 coin size slices.
• 1 Bottle of Vodka.

The Wild bloody mary.  (makes 2)

 

This is a perfect recipe to make use of all those tomatoes from your greenhouse as the tomato juice is made using freshly muddled tomatoes with a pinch of salt.

• 8 fresh tomatoes
• 100ml of Infused Vodka.
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 12 dashes of Worcester sauce
• 6 dashes of Tabasco
• Salt & Pepper to taste.

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice and add the infused vodka, lemon juice, Worcester sauce and Tabasco along with a healthy dose of salt & pepper. Place the fresh tomatoes in a bowl, add a pinch of flaked sea salt and using a muddler (a rolling pin will suffice) pummel the hell out of the tomatoes for a good couple of minutes until pulverised. Strain the fresh tomato juice into the cocktail shaker and stir well. Pour into a two glasses and garnish with a horseradish leaf.

  Woody: The HGC smoked applewood whisky sour. Secret.

Other Stuff:

Well it has been a busy summer! Been well and truly kept away from the office with courses- not a bad thing I suppose! Our Treehouse HQ was over funded on kickstarter and has been a joy to work in this summer- Thanks to all those who helped us get there- You're awesome!  a word to the Bushcraft folk that had a thing or two to say about it on their forum (You really have to read this thread!)- It most certainly does have a Wild Cocktail bar! And the Treehouse diaries is onto it's 2nd print run...thanks for the support gents.

HGC Treehouse HQ. Spring 2014.

I'm very proud to announce that Hunter Gather Cook has its very own Truffler! My furry little daughter B, graduated 2 weeks ago from trainee to practising doggy- not bad for a Jack Russell x Norfolk Terrrier pup. We got her 9 months ago, when she was only 10 weeks old and have been training her every day since. Very chuffed with the little ferret- she's had 3 successful outings so far, including digging up this beast: 

Great work B: Tuber Aestivum or Summer Truffle. Sussex 2014.

 

Wild Infusions, Sous Vide Style: Elderflower Vodka.

I’ve always struggled with Elderflower, it’s good stuff don’t get me wrong- one of the best inductions for many a blossoming forager. The versatility of this deciduous shrub is quite astounding: flowers, berries and even the official host of the Jew’s ear fungi. That’s quite a claim to fame. Here’s my issue, and as pathetic as it may sound, many of you will concur: just like a moody teenager whose favourite band has gone mainstream, the elder has sold out. You only have to ask God (google) for recipes and the results are astounding, but for good reason, and I shouldn’t whinge: It’s damn fine shit.

Over the years, my loyalty has shifted towards Meadowsweet (just coming into season now), something that we have to thank for the birth of aspirin, the flavour is better, but then here I am raving about my favourite band to a small collection of enthusiasts.

So, there are many ways of using Elderflower, especially when it comes to making cordials, infusions and liqueurs. The methods we have are traditional, old school and out dated. No longer do we have to wait two weeks for our homemade version of St.Germain, two hours is sufficient using some of the ‘technology’ we have available to us in this day and age.

At Hunter Gather Cook, Wild cocktails & Wild Brewing are part of the job, so we’re always playing with new methods of getting the best flavours out of wild and getting them into our desired tipples. The age old method of mascerating such things as elderflower, Japanese knotweed and beech leaves is perfectly acceptable and still very relevant, but there is a new method that can be utilized by the wild cocktail afficiendo: sous vide.

Sous vide (meaning literally ‘under vacuum’ en Francais) was first developed in the 1799 by one Sir Benjamin Thompson (although air was the preferred heat transfer medium). It wasn’t utilised again until the 1970’s when it was rediscovered by industrial food preservation experts. Since then the likes of Adria, Heston and Keller have been enjoying its versatility in the Michelin star stakes. This is also damn fine shit. Clearly.

I have been very lucky with my education in mixology: My brother, the same fellow that taught me snaring, fires and shooting (although I always had the upper hand at fishing) now runs Bamboo, a creative drinks strategy agency, based in London and New York, that has got quite the head for such capers. Bartery with wild ingredients have gained me brief access to their drinks lab and wealth of knowledge. Maceration was used as standard in 80% proof to help draw out the flavours naturally as quickly as possible, but sous vide also got a look in.

When you start playing with sous vide and liquids another chapter opens: spirits, cordials, fruit juices and vinegars suddenly become fair game. Essentially what sous vide does is A) speeds up the whole process (allowing for plenty of room for experimentation) and B) It simplifies the entire process whilst removing any danger of losing any delicate flavours to the atmosphere. In simple terms, real simple terms, you simply heat some water to 40˚C, maintain the heat, pour your liquid into a ziplock bag, add whatever you want to infuse it with, suck the air out of the bag, seal and stick it in the 40˚ C water and leave for an hour or two.

What you end up with is a purest product you could hope for in the shortest amount of time. You can go crazy adding different flavours and messing about: Wild horseradish and ground ivy vodka for the perfect bloody mary; Beech leaf and yarrow gin; Sorrel vinegar; haribo cordial (seriously, don’t bother), It becomes quite addictive and no doubt could turn you into a Doc Brown lookalike  with a massive drink problem, its all in the risk assessment. A word on alcohol selection- buy the cheap stuff, your’re going to flavour it anyway.

To accomplish sous vide, the essential component is to be able to heat the water that you put your ziplock of ingredients into and sustain it for a long period of time. You could put it in a pan of water and fiddle around with the hob, but then you would also have to make sure the bag was off the bottom of the pan. Ball ache…big time.

The other option is to fork out up to a grand on a waterbath (expect to pay at least £500 for a bottom end version). Spenny to say the least. Fortunately there is a way around having to stump up the dough: A deep fat fryer, basically a waterbath without a digital temperature adjustment.

A deep fat fryer will cost you no more than £30 the only other things you need are a couple of bamboo skewers, and a cooking thermometer. Fill it with water as opposed to the usual oil, place the thermometer in the water attached to the side of the cage and then fiddle with the heating dial until it keeps a constant 40˚C. Might be worth pointing out, the reason it is 40˚C is because any hotter than that and you run the risk ‘overcooking’ the infusion. The bamboo skewers are used just to lift the cage off the heating coil on the bottom, just in case the bag has any contact.

Pour your chosen spirit into a medium sized ziplock bag (double bag for safety) and chop or tear up your ingredients you want to infuse and add to the bag. At this point you must partially zip up the bag and suck out all the air, be wary: chugging on a bag full of vodka or gin can make you slightly lightheaded! Seal the bag and place into the ‘water bath’.

An hour and a half is, in my experience through a few botched timings, the perfect amount of time to get a solid infusion that isn’t over powering or lacking in scent and flavour (remember 70% of taste is smell). For the perfect wild cocktail, you don’t want to screw up your delicate infusion by chucking in a load of sugar…your not trying to make skittles vodka. Once you have your infusion you can always add a drop or two of sugar syrup when it comes to mixing up your desired drink.

The best way to truly enjoy your infusion is as a martini, straight up over ice or with the customary dash of vermouth.

Get experimenting!

So what else has been going on? I recently went out to Burgundy to see my good friend Mr Tom Kevill-Davies (also known as the Hungry Cyclist) to plot for next year: A week of cycling in the Burgundian vineyards, tasting fine wine, wild plants and fungi and even butchering a wild boar…whilst cruising around on a bicycle, chilling by the pool or plucking cherries straight out of the orchard.

Yes it going to be good. Be sure to check the website in the New Year to book. To see how the Hungry Cyclist lodge is being renovated by Tom and the amazing stuff he’s getting up to, visit http://lodge.thehungrycyclist.com/

Busy few weeks ahead at HGC with 4 weekends of private courses, Glynde food festival and then the big push for our foraging & butchery workshops and wild cocktail lounge at Wilderness festival.

We also have a new specialist course coming online next week: ‘Fish, Forage & Feast’, a day of learning how to fly fish on the gin-clear waters of Chalk Springs in Arundel, followed by a forage around the fishery and a series of taster dishes from all the fish you’re going to catch. Taking place on Saturday 28^th of September, check here for more details.

NEW WEBSITE & 2013 COURSES.

We have a brand spanking new website at: 

www.huntergathercook.com

Please drop by and check out who we are, what we do and our epic courses for 2013!

The Hunter Gather Cook Buckshot: Venison in a Mug.

We get through a fair amount of Deer at HGC HQ throughout the year, from beastly 70kg Fallow to dainty 25kg Roe. All the deer that come the the HGC kitchen are locally stalked and hung for the best part of 2 weeks before they appear on our table. In most cases its down to Ash, one of our instructors, to teach the delicate art of seam butchery with our guests. They all get stuck in be it removing the pelt, pencil fillets, backstrap, neck fillet or dissecting the haunch into a variety of fine cuts: The tender sirloin, top and bottom rounds, rump and the slightly tougher shank.

High Quality Banter plays an important role in our Butchery sessions.

HGC instructor Ash with one peice of backstrap ready for the camp kitchen.

Butchery is an important part of what we do and making it go as far as possible is firmly engrained in the Hunter Gather Cook ethos. Once Ash has finished with his apprentices, the meat is divvied up: Dave gets a fillet to make smoked biltong, I get the pencil fillets for carpaccio, haunches are put aside for the underground oven or split into cuts, antoher fillet is marinated and put on hazel skewers and all the offcuts are minced by hand. The 2 front haunches either end up in the freezer, go to my landlord or go home in a lucky course attendees rucksack. One deer, dealt with…

…not quite.

One Roe deer done: the remains of the carcass in the foreground ready for roasting.

What we are left with is not necessarily going straight to our very well fed foxes and buzzards (although the buzzards are more partial to picking apart rabbit pelts on a large fallen oak), but into our stockpot for plenty of future HGC meals. It works especially well in our Jelly Ear Broth with Sorrel.

First we fire roast the bones over the hearth on a bed of Oak and hornbeam before dismantling the ribcage and placing it in the pot with all the necessary goodies to form the basis of a fine stock: the holy trinity (onions, carrots, celery), a few crushed bulbs of garlic, salt & pepper, a good slug of red wine, crushed juniper berries, a sprig of rosemary, dried Wood Avens roots and an inch of cinnamon.

HGC instructor Dave roasts the remains on the fire ready for the stockpot.

Left to simmer away for the afternoon and reduce, by the end of a day course we have one hell of a stock and as most of the deer we get are virtually fat free- no need for skimming!

What we’re focusing on hear is a hearty, warming drink similar to the better known Bullshot (made using beef stock). The Buckshot is the far superior cousin and that little bit wilder. We served this wonderful concoction, a hot version of a Bloody Mary if you like, on our Fungal Foray & Feast’s back in October after a good two hour, drizzle-ridden yomp in search of ‘shrooms. By jingo did it go down well!

HGC course attendees filleting, mincing and mingling.

If you don’t happen to have a deer carcass to hand, try asking your local butcher and he might be able to get hold of some bones for you or substitute the venison stock for beef stock (then you have a bullshot). Without  further ado…the buckshot:

Ingredients.

(Serves 4)

500ml of Venison Stock (reduced)

300ml of Homemade Tomato passata

160ml of Vodka (Whisky can prove to be an interesting alternative!)

Juice of half a lemon

1 TSP Horseradish sauce

1 TSP red wine vinegar

a few drops of Tabasco (add more if it’s a cold day)

a drizzle of Worcester sauce

Salt & Pepper

Heat up the Venison stock and Tomato Passata in a saucepan, then add the rest of the ingredients and heat gently. You may wish to adjust seasonings to suit your taste, being a Tabasco addict, I like mine extra hot, but have to restrain myself when serving to guests!

Final thought- don't mess about when trying to manhandle a large deer carcass that weighs more than you into the back of a jeep. Trust me... 

If you would like to take part in any of our courses for 2013, please email:

[email protected]

The Wild Martini: Homemade Hedgerow Vermouth.

 

‘One martini is all right. Two are too many, and three are not enough.’

James Thurber

Martini’s are something that has gradually made an appearance over the last few years. A far cry from the foolish consumption of the two spirits involved: attempted and unconquered in teenage years, which often result in lifelong aversion for the many. Gin and Vodka demand respect and should be treated accordingly.

Personally I have always been partial to a hint of Gin, the G&T- a British institution to the Nth degree and something to keep malaria at bay, but Vodka has never had the same appeal until my recent education on exactly what a martini is…and can be. Forget all the James Bondage banter of ‘Shaken not Shtirred’, I won’t go into the refinements of mixology and whether your martini should be stirred in the direction of France/Italy or not. That’s for the anal-ists to discuss. For me, the attraction of the Martini lies in its simplicity: Ice, Vodka or Gin and Vermouth of some kind. An ice cold drink that never fails to hit the spot.

Cocktail hour used to be de rigueur back in the day, but now seems increasingly frowned upon, out here we have been extolling its virtues as a payment for every other day of toil- and rightly so. Far too many folk in the UK whinge and binge about alcohol consumption constantly, anabolic debates from suits, skirts, slaves to the city, bored housewives’, and depressed whining lefties (not to say I’m a righty- they just drink a lot. I consider myself an agnostic when it comes to politics): “Ooo, I might give up drinking for January…”, yes of course, that sounds like a great plan, and then binge-drink for the rest of the year. Moderation is key when enjoying the finer things in life and the Martini is no exception.

 

Obviously, I deal in Wild plants, so I am always keen to use them in new and different ways. I have had plenty of success with my wild brews- my Nettle beer is a constant delight, Meadowsweet champagne also a firm favourite. But, would I be able to stretch my wild botanicals to a vermouth? Hmm, why not?

On the whole, vermouth gets a bad name, I always assumed Noilly Pratt was produced for the sole purpose of cooking fish (excuse the fish pun), but it turns out that its real plaice is in the cocktail cabinet (no more, I promise). A lot of Martini aficionados constantly discuss how much vermouth, if any, should go near a martini. The more hardcore say that you should simply call up a friend and ask them to open and sniff a bottle of vermouth over the phone and that’s enough, others simply wash their glass with a splash and give it a swirl before discarding. I could go on, but I can’t be bothered. Gurnard.

 

When I looked into the construction of vermouth a bit more closely, it actually seemed quite achievable. Quite simply, vermouth is a mixture of aromatics: herbs, roots and bark, added to a base of wine with a touch of sugar, then bottled and sold.

It came as no surprise that someone on this here interweb had produced a homemade version, but with a list of ingredients longer than an Elephant’s love muscle, see here: http://lastcrumb.com/2007/09/06/homemade-vermouth/

When it came to selecting my ingredients from the wild, one thing I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to tickle out of the hedgerows would be wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) and Gentian, the two principle ingredients and bittering agents. I wanted to make this a recipe obtainable for most who like to forage without getting too precise on ingredients for a traditional vermouth. This was all about maceration glass containers, scientific mixing and metal spoons with long handles and stuff. So Heston, you could stick it on top of a pudding and call it a Blumenthal (in my head that sounded like blancmange).

Considering I decided to do this little experiment in the midst of November, I was quite surprised what was still available in the wild larder, mind you an extra month tacked on to the end of summer: another perk of La vie de Sud-ouest France, along with 1 ½ hour lunch breaks and half days on Friday, neither of which really apply to me- bugger. Obviously I couldn’t put a vermouth together without reaching for a few store cupboard staples, here’s the list of participants:

 

For the wild bunch:

Wild angelica (aromatic)

Wild Strawberry Tree fruit (Arbutus unedo) (fruity)

Gorse flowers (floral)

Wild Chamomile (floral/fruity)

Maritime pine needles (aromatic)

Rock Samphire (aromatic/floral)

Wild fennel seeds (aromatic)

The Staples:

Rosemary (aromatic)

Cinnamon (aromatic)

Orange zest (bittering)

Cloves (strong aromatic)

When picking your list of botanicals look for a few strong flavours- bitter, aromatic and perhaps something fruity/floral too.

There were thoughts of Yarrow, Meadowsweet, Sorrel and Himalayan Balsam flowers, but seasonality and simplicity got the better of me.  The only other problem was: how the hell do I make it?

Fortune rarely sits on a plate in front of you- this day it did, with big shiny bells on.  A certain cocktail company by the name of 'Bamboo', to which I have absolutely no family connection, came to my rescue. They do a lot of strange and wondrous things when it comes to mixology, like that blancmange bloke with the specs. I was transferred to the vermouth man who makes their in-house version and he talked me through the how, why, what, where and then of the martini’s ally.

Step 1:

Gather together your ingredients, both from the wild and the supermarket. Purchase some white granulated sugar, a bottle of dry white (a bottle from Languedoc was used in this case) and a spirit with the highest ABV possible in which to macerate your ingredients- the higher the percentage the better/faster the alcohol will draw out the flavours from your ingredients.

Step 2:

 Maceration should only take a couple of days- place your ingredients in a small jar, pour over the alcohol, seal and leave in a dark place. The best I could do for the alcohol was 50% and I used a spirit as neutral as possible- vodka.

Step 3:

Get out your measuring jugs- to balance your vermouth correctly the ratio of white wine to the macerated botanicals should be roughly 3:1. When it comes to mixing you should use 150ml of macerated botanicals to 500ml wine.

Step 4:

Gently heat 500ml of white wine in a non-metallic pan bring up to a simmer and add 2 TBSP sugar. The added sugar will help to hold and carry the flavour of your botanicals. Simmer for 5 minutes and remove from heat. Allow to cool completely.

Step 5:

Now its time to add your botanicals. This is where it is essential to taste as you go. It works to have a bottle of Noilly Prat for tasting as a comparison as you go. Obviously, remove the botanicals themselves and just use the liquid. I added 15ml of each of the 10 botanicals, which makes it up to 150ml in total. I actually had 11- but as cloves tend to be quite overpowering I only used about 7ml of the clove maceration. Orange zest can be doubled up, as it is a good bittering agent.

Step 6:

  Once mixed and your happy with the balance of flavours, bottle the vermouth and leave it for a couple of days to settle. You will then be ready to make your Martini.

Step 7:

  Martini Mixing. Get your self a cocktail shaker (NOT for shaking) and drop 5-6 ice cubes in. Although traditionally Gin is the one to use, I went for Vodka, once again as it is fairly neutral in flavour and should help to let the wild vermouth shine through. Pour 15ml of vermouth and 60ml of vodka over the ice and then stir gently with a chopstick or long spoon for about 1 minute. Once super chilled, pour the martini into the glass and garnish how you wish- olives/ lemon zest/ sorrel leaves. Drink. When Vodka is ice cold it slips down a treat.

So there you have it: the wild vermouth. Very much looking forward to the onslaught of spring and summer to play with a few more wild flavours. If you ‘into’ your Martini’s, I would strongly advise having a go at knocking up your own vermouth. Wild cocktails are definitely the way forward!

 

Plenty more been going on- so much so that I almost feel that i have been neglecting the website...But then who wants to spend more time than they have to in front of a computer? I went back to the UK a couple of weeks ago to set up HGC HQ- she overwintered very well, just in time for a visit from the Telegraph. We also had the first course: a stag do of 17 lads- a good time had by all! I also joined Al Humphreys and The Hungry Cyclist fo their A to Z: London's World of food- P is for Peru. A visit to Soho's 'Ceviche'. Fine nosh indeed. Do get in touch with them if you want to join them on the next one.

We are taking bookings for the summer- so do get in touch if you are keen to book up your very own HGC experience, May is almost full to the brim, with only a few weekdays remaining.

The most recent project is coming to fruition, back to the trees once again for an all natural tree pod. And I think Ihave found the perfect spot:

 

 

Marrow Rum: Farmyard hooch...

 

 

 

Lets face it, you can pretty much transform anything into loop juice as long as you have the essential ingredients: sugar and yeast. In some cases such as proper farmyard scrumpy, the juice of the apples is simply slapped into bottles and the naturally occurring yeasts and sugars do their thing over time…nature is truly wonderful!

Meadowsweet Champagne: No headache guaranteed!

 

 

There are few plants more intriguing than Meadowsweet. Those clever gents in white coats that first extracted the plant’s high levels of salicylic acid in order to synthesize the first aspirin knew it, and shortly…so will you!

 

The wonderful fragrance they fill the air with just after the rain and on a scorching summers day, the large candyfloss flower heads look good enough to eat, there is no denying it is one of Britain’s finest wild plants in every sense. Over the last few years, I have grown bored of elderflower, indeed it’s flavour is unique and quite pleasant and I will always be a partial to a drop, but I have found meadowsweet all that much more rewarding when used in place of elderflower.

The Hot Toddy...

 

The move back to reality has been interesting, despite being sat a computer 24/7 typing up the treehouse diaries, I have been able to witness some appallingly shit TV, enjoy the freedom of a proper ‘house’, and yet find myself acting like a true eco-zealot, if not I spend the time by the log fire…reminds me of home I suppose (a house without a proper fireplace surely isn’t a home? When and why did people stop having them?!).

Sloe Gin...

 

Back in my boarding school days, around the time of A-level examinations, myself and a few friends would meet for “Gin club” every Tuesday. Often held in one of our rooms, although we were all on the same floor at the top of the house (perfect positioning to avoid getting busted by our house master). Gin club consisted of sitting around in armchairs, having a good chinwag and a few G&T’s before bed after a hard evenings revision.

Battersea Nettle Beer: A wild brew from the urban jungle...

 

To those of you following my escapades, I am supposed to be living up a tree at the moment. And that is correct…sort of! I am as we speak in a homeless limbo of my Mothers place in Sussex (where I do all my blogging) and a sleeping bag in the middle of the wood. You will be pleased to know that it is coming along very well and progress will be updated here in a few days. I did have a particularly fine pint one afternoon, while working on the Treehouse, so here is the result of my final Urban foray in London and it goes a little something like this:

On the one hand, the stinging nettle is one of Mother Nature’s greatest gifts. On the other, it is the possibly one of the most annoying, frustrating plants growing today: It is all in the eye of the beholder.

In my toddling days, I learnt to give stingers a wide berth, I also learnt that the application of a split dock leaf was more than ample treatment to combat the throbbing infliction dealt out by this fairly innocent looking plant. As I have grown I have come to appreciate this plant for all its many uses: as a vegetable, a source of twine, a weapon (especially on country walks with friends) and most recently, as an ingredient for turning water into something a little more grown up…beer.

Back to the brewing: Playing with apple juice.

 

Two things that give enormous amounts of pleasure to many of us are food and drink. With the food side of things sorted and a credit crunch in full swing, I decided to head back to the brewing for a little midwinter madness.

 

With a copy of “The Alaskan bootleggers bible” in hand I climbed into bed one evening to immerse myself in the words of Leon W. Kania; a salt of the earth Alaskan fellow who, in his introduction, describes the typical pioneer types that inhabit the harsh environment that is Alaska:

 “A classic example is the story of the toothless old sourdough who not only killed the bear but also used its teeth to make a set of dentures to eat it with, I know a number of folk, both men and women who would put Robinson Crusoe to shame”.

Sussex, cider and a couple of fish.

I only think it fair to pay homage to three of my favourite things all in one post. These three subjects have all had their fair share of the limelight and frequently pop up in my writing. The following pictures were taken over one incredible weekend down south, from the Old smugglers village of Alfriston (fishing & cider) near the coast, up to Winnie the Pooh’s home; Ashdown Forest (shooting and mushrooms). I like to think that these photos epitomise why I love the countryside. Autumn is in full swing, the pike are back in season and the time has begun for getting cosy in crooked country pubs in front of big log fires, drinking pints of fine ale and sharing some top notch banter with friends.

This particular weekend began in the same way most Sussex breaks do, with a spot of fishing. As the winter draws in the pike start to become more active in their violent ambushes on unsuspecting baitfish, so it is the best time of year to chuck your line in the water in the hope of hauling in one of these evil looking beasts.

 

Homebrew: Hops.

 

I suppose it all began over the summer. I went down to visit my mother and noticed her hop plant had begun to gradually worm around the side of the fence and coil itself around it’s annual perch of the lengths of wire I had helped my mother put up the year before. This year I felt different about them. They had to be used for something. I had read about the Romans gorging themselves on hop shoots (an early form of asparagus appreciation no doubt) and I was well aware of the humble hop’s proven abilities in the brewery. By now they were almost halfway across the fence, out came the hammer, nails and wire and up went a further extension in the hope of maximising this years harvest.

 

 

There are certain things every young man should have achieved by the time they are 30, various research on the Internet and suggestions from friends revealed some interesting goals:

 

• Spend a night in a police cell
• Lick the terminals of a 9v battery
• Make a million pounds
• Do something illegal
• Use a whole roll of gaffer tape in a day
• Poo outdoors
• Kill your own food
• Appear on TV
• Jump out of an aeroplane (with parachute)
• Running with the bulls in Pampalona
• Make money on the stock market
• Stop saying “I want to be a…” and start saying “I am a…”
• Learn to surf
• Lose a week’s salary in a casino
• Hotwire a car
• Write a novel
• Live on a desert island for a month
• Drive across a country

Some of these I can happily say I have achieved, others I have little or no interest in. I think we all have our own personal goals as to what we wish to achieve by 30 and one of mine was to make my own booze.

Atomic Cider.

 

One of the first drops of booze to touch your lips in those hedonistic days of underage drinking…cider. Fortunately for me, it wasn’t White lightening that tainted this wonderful form of booze, although White lightening was responsible for my suspension from school in which I learnt a valuable lesson: don’t mix Smirnoff in the same glass as cider!

 

Many a trip to the West Country has been a roaring success due to ‘scrumpy’ and I cannot think of a more fitting drink for these parts. Many’s the time I have kicked back overlooking burgh island on the devon coast with a bell jar of scrumpy sat in the crook of my elbow and enjoyed the stunning view and the joy of not being trapped in the suburban hell that is London.

 

 

Of Gin and Beech Leaves.

An odd combination don’t you think? Why flavour a valuable bottle of gin with Sloes or Damsons…it seems like it would be much more palatable. It would also be quite ordinary. It is an ambition of mine to try the things that occur on this planet that are out of the ordinary, what could be better than infusing a perfectly good bottle of gin with some serious chlorophyll!

I have always found Gin and the addition of Tonic is truly the mark of the British Empire, it even tastes old and sophisticated. When sipping away on a good old G&T outside in the summer, I often think of Gin- soaked old boys with monocles sitting on a veranda of their massive house in India talking of empire expansion and infusing their bodies with a much needed hit of quinine, a primary ingredient in the tonic to prevent malaria. The product of an over active imagination, maybe. This was when it was seen as important to drink as prevention from disease, imagine that.

The spirit itself hails from Holland and was formulated around the 17th century. Gin’s popularity in Blighty exploded around the 1720’s when the British government placed massive duty tax on all imported spirits at the same time as allowing unlicensed gin production in Britain. By the 1740’s gin production was 6 times that of beer and it was incredibly cheap. I very much doubt it was to the standard of today’s Bombay Sapphire, Blanton’s or Gordon’s, but more like a Somerfield or ASDA brand Gin, nice!

So, as spring is sprung what has Gin got to do with it? For a start the weather has become delightful and we have begun to allow our pasty white bodies to bask in the sun and enjoy a refreshing alcoholic beverage outdoors. Pimms o’clock is not necessarily a certain hour of the day either, the parks of London on a hot day are packed full of groups of people out getting sozzeled in the sun. Do we Brits have a drinking problem? Of course we do, along with the rest of the continent! Except we try to hide it, a large percentage of Europeans happily knock back a bottle of Vino on their lunch breaks. The upstanding British Citizen would love to do just that, but we have to hold face, we are not like that Euro trash we say, we don’t want your funny money because we have the pound; WE ARE BRITISH!

Anyway, this is where the Beech comes in, at this time of year the young leaves are just coming through and are ready to be added to a sumptuous salad or stuck in a bottle of gin. This is not an exact science and there are hundreds of variations on this theme. I find the straight up natural approach to this is best. Find plenty of young beech leaves ideally no bigger than a 2 pence piece. Stuff them into a clear, sterilised bottle to the top and fill up with gin. Gordon’s is my favourite for this type of boozy tomfoolery. Store your hooch in a dark place for two weeks. Then drain out the gin and decanter into a fresh bottle. Simple.

Why?

Why not, the idea for mixing beech leaves with gin is twofold. Firstly the colour, the leaves impart a fantastic rich lime green colour to the gin so it almost looks slightly radioactive, this also looks interesting when mixed up in a glass. Secondly it imparts a fresh, slightly bitter taste to the gin, think gin and bitter lemon, to me the drink now holds the essence of spring. In the same way you can bottle this essence in the form of birch sap wine, but we will save that for another time. A nice tip for having a perfect G&T is to freeze tonic water into ice cubes and use those instead of diluting your drink with tasteless water from ordinary ice.

You don’t have much time left to get at those young beech leaves packed full of good things for the body, to mix it with something that is deemed, in excess, bad for the body is fine because the two will cancel each other out! This ‘recipe’ couldn’t be easier and is worth a go. To be able to bottle up the most invigorating time of year is a symbol of new life and good things to come- the summer. To be able to put together two great British flavours into a refreshing après work aperitif is a perfect way to relax, sit out in you own garden and think about building your own empire.