Will elderflowers make a nice eliksir?

Tomorrow I will go elderflower-picking. I expect that if I gather plenty it should be possible to extract enought flavour to make a nice dram. I recently got back from Beirut and in the airport's duty free I bought two bottles of Stolichnaya Gold, which was the only real bargain there. Each bottle only 8 dollars - yeeeah!

I've also had a sniff of my previous essentials. The stuff made on "Menyanthaceae Trifoliata" sure does seem to be tremendously bitter! I am looking forward to working more with it later on.

Turkish Eliksir

I've been in Turkey since the 16th, and here I have enjoyed the Raki. It is served in the same way here as its counterparts from Greece (Ouzo) and France (Pastis) are. It is simply the drink, water and ice. Very refreshing and tasty, if you fancy the liquorice-like flavour and the milky colour.

Here (and in Greece) they enjoy it with their evening meal, it is especially good with "Meze" and fish, whereas in France they drink it more as an apperitif but also "au terrain de boules" while playing "Petanque".

Alcohol is quite expensive here in Istanbul. The explanation is that Turkey is a muslim country, and since Islam does not approve of the consumption of alcohol it is highly taxed.

Apart from Raki I have had the Turkish lager called "Efes". Apparently it should be able to produce som serious hang-overs, but fortunately I am still without that experience. It is an OK beer and a fair drink that has a well pronounced maltiness going for it.

I have also read that Anatolia is good wine country, but unfortunately I haven't tried any of it yet. I might still make it though, since I'll be here for another two days, before I continue my travel and go to Beirut in Libanon.

The spoils of my hunt

The herbal hunt was nice. We found the elusive plant I desribed before, and havested its leaves and to a lesser extent its flowers. We were a bit late, so most of the flowers were already out of bloom. I did however manage to get a few, so they have now been covered with aquavit and since filtered away.

So now I have three extracts, each based on:

• Flower of "Menyanthaceae Trifoliata"
• Leaf of "Menyanthaceae Trifoliata"
• Flowers and leaves of "Asperula Odorata"

I am told these are kind of exotic ones to start with, since I'm a beginning in the making of eliksirs, but you have got to start somewhere, right?

The next plants I'll go hunting for will be "Potentilla erecta" and "Myrica gale", which should be safer/easier ingredients for achieving a successful taste and hence a lovely eliksir.

Here they are in dryed form. I'll try to find some pictures of the plants themselves asap.

Going herbal hunting

Tonight I am going to a remote forest in Jutland with a group of fellow enthusiasts. They too follow their facination with Aqua Vitae and spice their own eliksirs of life with plants and herbs they find in nature.

They are actually much more experienced than me, so I hope to learn a lot. Their association is called "Mårslet Brændevinslaug" and today's destination is "Velling Skov".

We will be searching specifically for this plant "Menyanthaceae Trifoliata" (translated from Danish it is called "Bitter Clover"). It goes particularly well with aqua vitae, but it has also been used for flavouring beer and as a tobacco substitute. In an eliksir it is said to cure stomach problems.



A full report will follow tomorrow!

Needed a dram tonight

So a glass of "Highland Park 18yo" did the trick. Well... a tot of "The Ileach" on top - that did the trick. :)

Eliksir No. 1. "The first nip"

Saturday I filtered and bottled my eliksir and had my first nip. I am sad to say that the dram is not very tempting on the nose. The taste on the other hand is OK. It still needs to stand for a few weeks in order to let the flavours marry. Then I'll I cast my final verdict. Not too optimistic though...

Eliksir No. 1: Two days older

I've just given my Babana Basil Aqua Vitae a swirl - hoping to release those flavours.

This fram might required a dubble-filtration before I bottle it, because the liquid is already looking quite cloudy from the disolving banana. The colour now is brownish, greenish, yellowish, but when bottled it should be easier to name that colour.