Why would anyone want to forage for cocktail ingredients? It’s so much easier to go to a liquor store, or a grocery store, or a farmers’ market. Why would you choose to tromp through the woods, hunt down some edible plants, carry them home, clean them off, and figure out how to use them in a cocktail?
Foraging has its own unique pleasures. Though we no longer need to forage to survive, many of us still find it fascinating and satisfying. Is it the lure of free food? The thrill of the hunt? The promise of unbuyable flavors? For people who appreciate unusual tastes, wild edibles offer exciting ingredients and new opportunities.
If you’re already a forager, many of the ingredients in this book will be familiar to you. If you’ve never foraged before, welcome to the club! There’s a recommended reading list at the back of the book to help you learn more about edible plants in your area. Pick one or two field guides and really get to know your plants. I can’t stress enough how important proper plant identification is.
Foraging is only fun when it’s safe, and it’s your responsibility (if you’re old enough to drink, you’re old enough to be responsible) to make intelligent, educated choices about what you choose to eat.
Take a class, join an online wild foods group or local foraging club, read everything you can get your hands on. If you know of a local bar or restaurant that serves wild foods, try some foraged flavors to see if you like them. Some of the ingredients in this book can actually be purchased in stores, online, and in herb shops. If you’re curious about whether something is worth the work of hunting and gathering, try buying a bit of it if possible and see what you think. I guarantee that wild foods will taste even better when you’ve harvested them yourself.
One of the best things about foraging is that you harvest wild edibles at their peak and use them, or preserve them, when they’re at their most delicious. No one picks cornelian cherries before they’re ripe or Japanese knotweed when it’s passed its tender best. The wild foods you’ll use in these cocktails have limited seasons when they’re ripe and ready. You’ll capture those seasonal flavors and use them to create cocktails that represent a specific moment and place. It’s almost magical, and it makes your cocktails unique.
As a forager, I look for delicious wild plants wherever I go, and I try to use as many as possible in my daily life. After hunting for mushrooms, greens, fruits, and nuts, my idea of a good time is a weekend in the kitchen playing with what I’ve found. That includes both food and drink. With the craft cocktail movement in full swing, it makes perfect sense to bring foraged ingredients into the bar as well as the kitchen.
I’ve made wild wines and meads for years, but my interest in foraged mixology took a big step forward when I was hired by Rémy Cointreau USA to teach a series of foraged mixology workshops across the country for The Botanist gin. I introduced bartenders to the wild plants they could forage in their areas, and together we turned them into unusual cocktails. I’d fallen hard for The Botanist a year before meeting anyone from Rémy, which was nice, because I wouldn’t endorse a product I didn’t think was terrific. Not ever. That’s a promise.
I enjoy a wide range of spirits, and writing this book has been a joy, as I’ve tested different distilled flavors and combined them with some of my favorite wild edibles. It’s a whole new way to incorporate unbuyable flavors into your daily ritual. Come have a drink with me.
Eating wild plants and fungi is inherently risky. Individual people may make mistaken identifications regardless of their level of expertise or the accuracy of printed information, and they also vary in their physiological reactions. The publisher and the author cannot accept responsibility for readers’ health. Eat wild foods at your own risk, and always drink responsibly.