Shrubs, not the Kind You Trim
And jams, the kind you eat
Two announcements!
Due to an ordering mix-up I’m giving away one set of Smart Mouth-branded travel utensils, mug and masks. Just reply to this newsletter and I’ll pick a recipient at random.
There’s a book club now over at the Smart Mouth Patreon. This month’s book is The Man Who Ate Too Much, perhaps you would like to join us.
Shrubs for Drinking, not Trimming
At the beginning of every month, I hear from friends who are experimenting with staying sober for 30 days (it’s becoming a fairly well-known health challenge), which generally means drinking mixtures of juices and carbonated seltzers when they would otherwise have booze. They usually get bored of it quickly.
As a non-drinker (not a recovering alcoholic – why does everyone assume that?), I’m always on the lookout for virgin mocktails, coolers, spritzers, and punches, and last year, I got seriously hooked on shrubs. No, I’m not talking about the green garden plants, I’m referring to the “emerging beverage category” that you’ve perhaps never heard of.
According to Mindy McCord, one of the founders of Siren Shrubs, shrubs date back to the 1800s, a time when vinegar was used both to preserve a season's harvest and to make sketchy water and unpalatable spirits more drinkable. These so-called “drinking vinegars” were believed to have hydrating and medicinal qualities and were drunk by farm workers in the fields, sailors on the sea, and everyday Joes in the pub.
When Prohibition took effect in the US, shrubs became a mainstream replacement for alcohol, but they began falling out of favor when Prohibition ended, which also coincided with refrigerators becoming more commonplace. Shrubs began slowly attempting a comeback alongside the craft cocktail movement in the 2000s, though they still aren’t a common product…yet.
Sophisticated shrub mixtures are made from apple cider vinegar, a natural sugar, and a root, fruit, or herb (think basil, lemongrass, and honeycrisp apple). Only a splash is needed to craft a more complex beverage and they can be used to spice up a hot herbal tea or a cold, refreshing punch. In either case, alcohol isn’t required but you certainly could use it. For recipe inspiration, check out non-alcoholic shrub recipes like grapefruit, ginger, and cardamom fizz and boozy shrub drinks like this “Honeycrisp Chai Old Fashioned,” a truly Wisconsin drink.
Bottoms up! 🥃
Grafting Fruit, Preserving a Legacy
By Laura Wheatley
On the weekends Alessandra Gordon rolls up to Seattle-area farmers’ markets in her glittery galactic blue “Jam Van,” ready to sell handmade jams that showcase the best of the moment's harvest in spreadable joy. The Ayako & Family company was started by her mother, Ayako Gordon, in 2010. The two worked alongside each other for years, and when Ayako passed away in 2019, Alessandra took over to carry on her legacy.
The venture began as a culmination of Ayako's friendship and partnership with farmer and fellow Japanese immigrant Katsumi Taki of Organic Mair Farm-Taki. He is an ex-biologist and agriculturist in the Yakima region of Washington state who grows between 10 to 15 plum varieties every year. Among those are heirloom and heritage types, but over half are hybrids – a cross-cultivation of the farm’s proprietary plums.
Taki searches for wild plum tree varieties nearby and grafts them with existing ones on his farm to cultivate plums bursting with rich flavor. The hybrid fruits include the Akane Plum, meaning “deep red” in Japanese and described by Alessandra as “sweet with the tartness of pomegranate,” and the Water Balloon Plum, which in its afterlife as jam becomes what she refers to as the "rainbow sherbet of flavors."
A certain special variety was created by joining a wild plum tree Taki found growing along the Yakima River with a Japanese one on his farm. He named the new plum after Ayako in honor of their friendship. It yields a smaller harvest of beautiful, bright fruit, which after it is made into Ayako & Family limited edition jam, reveals a “hint of eucalyptus, as if brought in by a warm breeze, over bright, richly textured fruit.”
Gordon and her team process hundreds of pounds of fruit by hand within several days before making the jam in small batches using traditional copper pots. She tells me that many of her customers waited up to 12 months to sample this year’s harvest jams. This was partially due to an increase in demand, and in turn, processing more jam than ever before.
Even with this growth, says Gordon, "We preserve this story, the one of the farmer and his harvest."🍑
More Food Reading:
Excellent op-ed arguing the case of abolishing the USDA. Let’s do it!
Black truffles: can they make it out West?
Why do we call everything charcuterie? The discussion around this essay is rawther intriguing.
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This newsletter is edited by Katherine Spiers, host of the podcast Smart Mouth.
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