The Cottage Smallholder

white currant and gooseberry vodka

I had a sip or two of our elderflower vodka a couple of days ago. The flavour has improved and mellowed a bit. Unlike TCL’s – it’s drinkable – just. It has good notes when you open the bottle and sniff but the waft promises loads more than the grog actually presents. There is no trace of that early summer elderflower cordial zing. It might be the sort of shot that you’d be given to settle your metabolism and clean the blood.

Faintly herbal, this elderflower vodka will never shine as a star in our cellar. We have three litres of this grog – my optimism sadly knew no bounds.

Instinct says.
“Throw this away. Put it down to experience. Why throw good fruit after bad?”
Instinct encouraged me to invest in three litres of vodka so I’m not following Instinct’s advice when it comes to homemade grog.

I decided to embark on major tinkering. I added 350g of freshly plucked home grown gooseberries and 100g of sugar to 75ml of elderflower vodka. Hoping that this would modulate the medicinal tongue cleaning aftertaste. After a few good shakes the vodka smelt far better and much more promising. Two days later this gooseberry vodka is tasting good. It will need more sugar in time.

I also had 300g of white currants to hand. Home grown too and missed by the birds. I added these to 75ml of elderflower vodka and bunged in 30g of sugar. That is the bottle on the left – the one with the ‘frogspawn’ effect at the base. This is also doing well – the slight sharpness of the white currants is working.

Perhaps the hint of elderflower will make these concoctions superb? Only time will tell.

Now I have just 1.5 litres of the elderflower vodka left. I’m going to keep a bit back to see how it develops – it could be great in a few months time. Meanwhile I reckon that hulled strawberries or wild mountain strawberries could be a good partner with the remaining 75ml.

Perhaps these are the first faltering steps to becoming a master blender!