Seasons In A Bottle [flavoured spirits ]

[Darlica]

I got this idea yesterday, remember that I was talking about Summer in a bottle some time ago?

Yesterday I realised it should be Seasons In A Bottle.

Spring In A Bottle: Birch sap, tender birch leafs, lemon grass (or lemon balm) and vodka.

Summer In A Bottle: Wild strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and vodka (I think a rum version would be drinkable too).

Autumn In A Bottle: sloe berries and vodka (gin would work too).

Winter In A Bottle:? What in the world of fruits and herbs could represent winter?

Ideas?
Does this sound interesting or just horrible?

[Aggie]

Sounds very interesting!  My MIL makes several types of herb and/or fruit spirits - I think she starts with grain spirits (basically vodka) and adds in whatever.

Winter...  aside from culinary associations (baking spices like cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg) - how about pine?  (MIL makes a pine 'wine').  Oooh, I wish one could capture the taste/odour of fresh snow in a bottle.

[Darlica]

We were discussing this with some friends on-line, earlier this evening, I think my SO capture what I would like it to taste like very well.

that dry, crisp, almost woody and slightly tingling electrical smell you get in the air in the stillness just before a snowstorm? I am aware that it is probably impossible to capture that extremely delicate smell in a flavour -wehat I am after is something that would trick your senses into smelling and tasting it, and thinking "Yes, this is what a snowstorm tastes like", much on the same lines as an impressionist painting is really just blobs and smears of colour -that also happen to suggest a breathtakingly beautiful pond of water lilys. -Darlica's SO

[Aggie]

Yes!  That's it!  (the southlanders probably think we're crazy, but snow does have a smell - I can tell a storm is on the way by smell sometimes).

Fresh glacier water comes close, sometimes.  A very subtle hint of woodsmoke would not hurt, birch smoke maybe?


Spring for me needs a little bit of that "rotting under the snow" humus smell, and I think for my locale, poplar bud-case gum (those nasty 'stickies' in the spring) would be a better stand-in for birch.  On second thought, I grew up with more birch 'stickies', but the poplar ones have a stronger smell.

[The Meromorph]

For winter. Pinon nuts in Peppermint Schnapps...

[Darlica]

Peppermint schnapps Brrrrr!

But good neutral vodka with pine nuts, and a hint of peppermint (2 leafs) a bottle might work but I think it need some thing more...

[Lindorm]

For winter. Pinon nuts in Peppermint Schnapps...

Peppermint schnapps? Hmmm... I am not really sure how toothpaste vodka would convey the spirit of winter.

I am thinking more of something along the lines of a small, small hint of cedar wood and perhaps a touch of birch. Agujjim's idea of birch wood smoke was intriguing...

[Opsa]

Oh yes, I was thinking along the lines of peppermint shnapps, too, but more subtle. It needs a mineral note, too to represent the ice crystals. Maybe the vodka would provide that.

An artemesia might supply a slightly rotting sweet flavor for spring. I hear that some version of Absenth is making a comeback.

I love the wild strawberries in the summer brew. So Ingmar Bergman!

How about the Absenth base for spring, the rum for summer, gin for autumn and vodka for winter?

[anthrobabe]

snow does have a smell
and so does the rain in Arizona-- it is on the wind,

hmmmm-winter, I like the mint ideas(but I do not like peppermint schnapps- too minty like Lindorm said, toothpastey), and how could one capture the smell of wood fires and fuzzy blankets..... some sort of inner bark but probably not cinnamon(it is good but overdone). something more woodsy--- I wonder what liquid smoke would taste like? probably not good but maybe a start. And I think pine would be good--- I've eaten the little tiny pine needles as they just begin to emerge and are all soft and piney- but that is sort of spring I suppose.

[Opsa]

I don't know, I think you're onto something, there, 'Thro.

It'd be fun to produce these if we get a physical monastery at some point.

[Darlica]

Oh yes, I was thinking along the lines of peppermint shnapps, too, but more subtle. It needs a mineral note, too to represent the ice crystals. Maybe the vodka would provide that.

An artemesia might supply a slightly rotting sweet flavor for spring. I hear that some version of Absenth is making a comeback.

I love the wild strawberries in the summer brew. So Ingmar Bergman!

How about the Absenth base for spring, the rum for summer, gin for autumn and vodka for winter?

There is a slight trouble, I don't like the Pastisse family, Pernod, Abshint, Ouzu etc. and I wouldn't make anything I didn't like to drink my self. 

I can guess why you associate wild strawberries with Ingmar Bergman but I don't think it's fair, on behalf of the strawberries...  I like my berries without Drama thankyouverymuch!

[Opsa]

Well personally, I'd be very impressed if my strawberries played chess with Death.

I guess you're right about the Absinth. What about an earthy white wine?

[Darlica]

I guess you're right about the Absinth. What about an earthy white wine?

For a drink yes, but wine will go sour if you try to re bottle it and probably mouldy if other substances got added. One has to use a spirit with somewhere 25% alcohol to get around those troubles. I prefer Vodka with 38-40% as base for my experiments, if it gets stronger the alcohol usually overpower the taste of the other ingredients.     

[Lindorm]

some sort of inner bark but probably not cinnamon(it is good but overdone). something more woodsy

What about birch? Perhaps not inner bark, since that contains a lot of tannins and acids and would probably just taste yuck, but perhaps young buds? There is a sort of flavoured vodka traditionally made here in northern Sweden and Finland (and Ukraine, too) where vodka is flavoured by budding young birch leaves, of "mouse ear size" that are steeped in the vodka for a while. Perhaps something on those lines? Or rowan?

And I think pine would be good--- I've eaten the little tiny pine needles as they just begin to emerge and are all soft and piney- but that is sort of spring I suppose.

Sure, that is perhaps more something of spring. But I do think that it does carry something of the dry, woody flavour I am imagining. But perhaps a bit over-powering on it's own? And how on earth would you get a drink to taste somewhat electrically? I don't think mixing in battery acid is the right method...

[Darlica]

Capsicain?