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

  also by amy stewart

  From the Ground Up: The Story of a First Garden

  The Earth Moved:

  On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms

  Flower Confidential:

  The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful

  Wicked Plants:

  The Weed that Killed Lincoln’s Mother & Other Botanical Atrocities

  Wicked Bugs:

  The Louse that Conquered Napoleon’s Army & Other Diabolical Insects

  to PSB

  contents

  Aperitif

  About the Recipes

  PART I

  We explore the twin alchemical processes of fermentation and distillation, from which wine, beer, and spirits issue forth.

  Proceeding in an Orderly Fashion through the Alphabet:

  The Classics, from Agave to Wheat

  Then Moving onto a Sampling of More Obscure Sources of Alcohol from around the World:

  Strange Brews

  PART II

  We then suffuse our creations with a wondrous assortment of nature’s bounty.

  Herbs & Spices

  Flowers

  Trees

  Fruit

  Nuts & Seeds

  PART III

  At last we venture into the garden, where we encounter a seasonal array of botanical mixers and garnishes to be introduced to the cocktail in its final stage of preparation.

  Sorted in a Similar Fashion, including Recipes and Sufficient Horticultural Instruction:

  Herbs

  Flowers

  Trees

  Berries & Vines

  Fruits & Vegetables

  Digestif

  Some Final Business:

  Recommended Reading

  Acknowledgments

  Index

  recipes

  COCKTAILS

  Classic Margarita

  The French Intervention

  Cider Cup

  The Vavilov Affair

  Rusty Nail

  Old-Fashioned

  Vermouth Cocktail

  Pisco Sour

  Black Gold

  No. 1 Sake Cocktail

  Manhattan

  Honey Drip

  Daiquiri

  Mojito y Mas

  Prickly Pear Sangria

  The Bay Rum

  Bison Grass Cocktail

  Pimm’s Cup

  Dr. Struwe’s Suze and Soda

  Moscow Mule

  The Classic Martini

  Dombey’s Last Word

  The Perfect Pastis

  Sazerac

  Jerry Thomas’ Regent’s Punch

  Dancing with the Green Fairy

  The Aviation

  The Champagne Cocktail

  The Mamani Gin & Tonic

  The Douglas Expedition

  Royal Tannenbaum

  Caribou

  Valencia

  Kir

  The (Hybridized) Brooklyn Cocktail

  Sloe Gin Fizz

  Red Lion Hybrid

  Negroni

  Ciao Bella

  The Frank Meyer Expedition

  Blood Orange Sidecar

  Ramos Gin Fizz

  Mai Tai

  Buena Vista’s Irish Coffee

  Walker Percy’s Mint Julep

  Lavender-Elderflower Champagne Cocktail

  Lavender Martini

  Jack Rose

  The Frézier Affair

  Blushing Mary

  SYRUPS, INFUSIONS, AND GARNISHES

  Prickly Pear Syrup

  Capillaire Syrup

  Elderflower Cordial

  Gomme Syrup

  Homemade Maraschino Cherries

  Homemade Nocino

  Garden-Infused Simple Syrup

  Brine Your Own Olives

  Homemade Grenadine

  Infused Vodkas

  Limoncello and Other Liqueurs

  Garden Cocktails: A Template for Experimentation

  Refrigerator Pickles

  APERITIF

  The inspiration for this book came from a chance encounter at a convention of garden writers in Portland, Oregon. I was sitting in a hotel lobby with Scott Calhoun, an agave and cactus expert from Tucson. Someone had just given him a bottle of Aviation, a fine locally made gin. “I’m not much of a gin drinker,” he said. “I don’t know what to do with this.”

  I knew what to do with it.

  “I’ve got a drink recipe that will make you love gin,” I said. He looked doubtful, but I continued. “We’re going to need fresh jalapeños, some cilantro, a few cherry tomatoes . . .”

  “Stop,” he said. “That’s enough. I’m in.” No one from Tucson can resist a jalapeño-based cocktail.

  We spent the afternoon running around Portland, gathering our ingredients. On the way, I subjected Scott to my rant on the many virtues of gin. “How can anyone with even a passing interest in botany not be fascinated by this stuff?” I said. “Look at the ingredients. Juniper! That’s a conifer. Coriander, which is, of course, the fruit of a cilantro plant. All gins have citrus peel in them. This one has lavender buds, too. Gin is nothing but an alcohol extraction of all these crazy plants from around the world—tree bark and leaves and seeds and flowers and fruit.” We had arrived at the liquor store by then, and I was gesturing wildly at the shelves around us. “This is horticulture! In all of these bottles!”

  I hunted for the ingredient I needed—proper tonic water, made with actual cinchona bark and real Saccharum officinarum, not that artificial junk—while Scott browsed the selection of bottled Agave tequilana. He was in the habit of trekking into Mexico in search of rare agave and cactus, and he’d encountered many of his prized specimens coming out of the working end of a handmade Oaxacan still.

  Before we left, we stood in the doorway for a minute and looked around us. There wasn’t a bottle in the store that we couldn’t assign a genus and species to. Bourbon? Zea mays, an overgrown grass. Absinthe? Artemisia absinthium, a much-misunderstood Mediterranean herb. Polish vodka? Solanum tuberosum—a nightshade, which is a weird family of plants if there ever was one. Beer? Humulus lupulus, a sticky climbing vine that happens to be a close cousin to cannabis. Suddenly we weren’t in a liquor store anymore. We were in a fantastical greenhouse, the world’s most exotic botanical garden, the sort of strange and overgrown conservatory we only encounter in our dreams.

  The cocktail (Mamani Gin & Tonic, p. 238) was a hit with the garden writers. Scott and I signed copies of our books in our publisher’s booth that night, and we took turns putting down our pens to slice peppers and muddle cilantro. The broad outlines of this book were conceived right then, over two or three of those decidedly botanical cocktails. I should dedicate this to the person who gave Scott that bottle of Aviation—if only either of us could remember who it was.

  In the seventeenth century, British scientist Robert Boyle, one of the founders of modern chemistry, published his Philosophical Works, a three-volume treatise on physics, chemistry, medicine, and natural history. He understood perfectly the connection between booze and botany, which fascinates me as well. Here is an abridged version of his take on the subject:

  The inhabitants of Carribbe islands supply us with remarkable instances hereof where the poisonous root Mandiboca is converted into both bread and drink: by being chew’d, and spit out into water, it soon purges itself of its noxious quality. They, having in some of our American plantations, found it very difficult to make good malt of maiz or Indian corn, they first reduce it to bread, and afterwards brew a very good drink from it. In China, they make their wi
ne from barley; in the northern parts thereof, from rice and apples. In Japan, also they prepare a strong wine from rice. We in England, likewise, have great variety of wines from cherries, apples, pears, &c. little inferior to those of foreign growth. In Brazil, and elsewhere, they make strong wine of water and sugarcane: and in Barbadoes they have many liquors unknown to us. Among the Turks, where wine of the grape is forbid by their law, the Jews and Christians keep, in their taverns, a liquor made of fermented raisins. The Sura in the East-Indies is made of the juice that flows from the cocoa-tree; and sailors have often been inebriated, in that country, with the liquors made of the fermented juices obtain’d by the incision of vegetables.

  And so on. Around the world, it seems, there is not a tree or shrub or delicate wildflower that has not been harvested, brewed, and bottled. Every advance in botanical exploration or horticultural science brought with it a corresponding uptick in the quality of our spirituous liquors. Drunken botanists? Given the role they play in creating the world’s great drinks, it’s a wonder there are any sober botanists at all.

  With this book, I hope to offer a plant’s-eye perspective on booze and to supply a little history, a little horticulture, and even some agricultural advice for those of you who want to grow your own. I begin with the plants we actually turn into alcohol, such as grapes and apples, barley and rice, sugarcane and corn. Any of them can, with the help of yeast, be transformed into molecules of intoxicating ethyl alcohol. But that’s only the beginning. A great gin or a fine French liqueur is flavored with innumerable herbs, seeds, and fruit, some of them added during distillation and some just before bottling. And once a bottle gets to the bar, a third round of plants are called into service: mixers like mint, lemon, and—if the party’s at my house—fresh jalapeño. I structured the book around this journey from mash tub and still, to bottle, to glass. Within each section, the plants are arranged in alphabetical order by their common name.

  It would be impossible to describe every plant that has ever flavored an alcoholic beverage. I am certain that at this very moment, a craft distiller in Brooklyn is plucking a weed from a crack in the sidewalk and wondering if it would make a good flavoring for a new line of bitters. Marc Wucher, an Alsatian eau-de-vie maker, once told a reporter, “We distill everything except our mothers-in-law,” and if you’ve ever been to Alsace, you know he wasn’t exaggerating.

  So I was forced to pick and choose from the world’s botanical bounty. Although I tried to cover some of the more obscure, exotic, and forgotten plants we imbibe, and to tell of some strange brews you’d have to travel the globe to sample, most of the plants you’ll meet in this book will be familiar to American and European drinkers. I covered 160 in all and could have easily explored a few hundred more. Many of them have botanical, medicinal, and culinary histories so vast that a few pages can’t do them justice—and in fact, some of them, such as quinine, sugarcane, apples, grapes, and corn have already received the book-length treatment they deserve. What I hope to do here is to give you just a taste of the dazzlingly rich, complex, and delicious lives of the plants that go into all those bottles behind the bar.

  Before we proceed, a few disclaimers are in order. The history of drinking is riddled with legends, distortions, half-truths, and outright lies. I didn’t think any field of study could be more prone to myths and misstatements than botany, but that was before I started researching cocktails. Facts tend to get bent out of shape over a round of drinks, and liquor companies aren’t obligated to stick to the truth at all: their secret formulas can remain a secret, and the burlap bags of herbs placed about the distillery might be there only for ambience or even for misdirection. If I state plainly that a liqueur contains a particular herb, that’s because the manufacturer or someone else with direct, firsthand knowledge of the process, said it did. Sometimes one can only guess at secret ingredients, so I’ve tried to make it clear when I’m guessing as well. And if the story of a beverage’s origin seems dubious or cannot be verified from anything other than a single, yellowing newspaper clipping, I’ll let you know that, too.

  To those of you with more than a passing interest in distillation or mixology, I urge you to be wary of experimenting with unknown plants. As the author of a book on poisonous plants, I can tell you that dropping the wrong herb into a still or a bottle for the purpose of extracting its active ingredients might be your last act of creativity. I’ve included some warnings about deadly look-alikes and dangerous botanical relatives. Do remember that plants employ powerful chemicals as defenses against the very thing you want to do to them, which is to pluck them from the ground and devour them. Before you go foraging, get a reputable field guide and follow it closely.

  It is also important to note that distillers can use sophisticated equipment to extract flavorings from a plant and leave the more harmful molecules behind, but an amateur soaking a handful of leaves in vodka has no such control. Some of the plants described in this book are poisonous, illegal, or tightly regulated. Just because a distiller can work with them safely doesn’t mean you can, too. Some things are best left to the experts.

  Finally, a word of caution about medicinal plants. The history of many of the herbs, spices, and fruits in this book is the very history of medicine. Many of them were traditionally used, and are still being used, to treat a range of ailments. I find that history fascinating and I’ve shared some of it here, but none of it is intended as medical advice. An Italian digestif can be surprisingly soothing to a troubled stomach or a troubled mind; beyond that, I’m unwilling to speculate.

  Every great drink starts with a plant. If you’re a gardener, I hope this book inspires a cocktail party. If you’re a bartender, I hope you’re persuaded to put up a greenhouse or at least plant a window box. I want everyone who walks through a botanical garden or hikes a mountain ridge to see not just greenery but the very elixir of life—the aqua vitae—that the plant world has given us. I’ve always found horticulture to be an agreeably intoxicating subject; I hope you will, too. Cheers!

  ABOUT THE RECIPES

  These are simple, classic recipes that best express the way a particular plant can be put to use in liquor. There are several original recipes, but even they are variations on the classics. If you’re new to mixing drinks, here are a few hints.

  Serving size: A cocktail is not supposed to be an enormous drink. The modern martini glass is a monstrosity; filled to the rim, it holds eight ounces of liquid. That’s four to five drinks, more than anyone should choke down in a single sitting. (If nothing else, the liquor gets warm before you finish it.)

  A serving of straight liquor is one and a half ounces, which is, conveniently, the larger end of a jigger. (The smaller side, called a pony, is three-quarters of an ounce.) Add liqueur or vermouth, and a not-too-excessive drink might contain the equivalent of two ounces of hard alcohol.

  The recipes in this book conform to that standard. A nicely proportioned drink, sipped while it’s still cold, is a lovely thing. Have a second one if you want, but do get in the habit of mixing one small, civilized drink at a time. To facilitate this, measure all your pours, and please get rid of your jumbo-sized cocktail glasses (or reserve them for drinks that are mostly fruit juice), and invest in a set of more modestly proportioned stemware. Oh, and speaking of glasses, for the recipes in this book, you can get by with Champagne flutes, wine glasses, and the following:

  • Old-Fashioned glasses—Short, wide six-to eight-ounce tumblers.

  • Highball glasses—Taller glasses that hold around twelve ounces. A standard sixteen-ounce drinking glass, or, for that matter, a Mason jar, will do.

  • Cocktail glasses—Conical or bowl-shaped glasses with a stem; the basic martini glass.

  A few other terms, ingredients, and ideas that might need further explanation:

  Ice: Do not be timid about adding ice or a splash of water to a drink. It does not water down the drink; it improves it. Water actually loosens the hold that alcohol has on aromatic molecules, which heig
htens rather than dilutes the flavor.

  Muddling: To muddle is to mash herbs or fruit in the bottom of a cocktail shaker, often with a blunt wooden implement called a muddler. If you don’t have one of those, use a wooden spoon. Cocktails made with muddled ingredients are strained so that crushed plant matter doesn’t end up in the glass.

  Simple syrup: Simple syrup is a mixture of equal parts water and sugar, heated to a boil to dissolve the sugar, then allowed to cool. Sugar water will attract bacteria, so don’t bother mixing up a large batch—it won’t keep long. Just mix a little when you need it. If time is short, a microwave and a freezer can speed up the boiling and subsequent cooling considerably.

  Standard-issue egg white warning: Some of the recipes call for raw egg whites. If you are concerned about the possible health consequences of consuming raw eggs, please skip those.

  Tonic water: Don’t ruin high-quality liquor with terrible tonic. Look for premium brands like Fever-Tree or Q Tonic, which are made with real ingredients, not artificial flavors and high-fructose corn syrup.

  Visit drunkenbotanist.com

  for more recipes and techniques.

  PART I

  We Explore the Twin Alchemical Processes of Fermentation and Distillation, from which Wine, Beer, and Spirits Issue Forth

  The botanical world produces alcohol in abundance. Or, to be more precise, plants make sugar, and when sugar meets yeast, alcohol is born. Plants soak up carbon dioxide and sunlight, convert it to sugar, and exhale oxygen. It is not much of an exaggeration to claim that the very process that gives us the raw ingredients for brandy and beer is the same one that sustains life on the planet.

  the classics

  We begin by exploring the classics, the plants most commonly transformed into alcohol, proceeding in an orderly fashion through the alphabet from agave to wheat.

  Agave | Apple | Barley | Corn | Grapes | Potato | Rice | Rye | Sorghum | Sugarcane | Wheat