Botanical Bartending

During the pandemic, I was also in grad school. Two very stressful things that happenedsimultaneously. Naturally, I took up drinking and gardening – as many people did – and I found great combinations of fresh herbs and alcohol. At first I was really taken by the alcohol, but then I started experimenting with using fresh herbs to make shrubs, infuse syrups, and craft vinaigrettes. I now look for fresh herbs when visiting restaurants or bars and gauging my food experience. Whether garnishes on the side, the main components of a salad, or a handmade syrup over a bought syrup, fresh herbs make all the difference. You can taste, see, and smell the difference.

First off, what is an herb? Herbs are the edible leaves, flowers, and stems of a plant. Spices are the fruit or the seed of a plant. One example is cilantro and coriander or dill and dill seed. Both herbs and spices can be used in drinks, but herbs do most of the heavy-lifting in concocting cocktails.

Plant Care

We want to drink responsibly AND garden responsibly so plant care is necessary. I like to keep my herbs near the house so that I can quickly harvest the leaves. You never know when you need an emergency drink!

Herb gardening near the house is also extremely practical and allows gardeners to check water, sunlight, or pruning needs. Before you start shoveling, research the herbs and their preferences.

Many herbs like rosemary, sage, lavender, thyme, and oregano originate from the Mediterranean and need arid, sunny, light yet consistent watering. Replicate their conditions with well-draining potting soil, terracotta container gardening, and protecting them from major rainstorms.

Moving onto the good stuff, how do you pair the herbs you planted the alcohol on your shelf?

Liquor

Vodka is the mushroom of the alcohol world and takes on whatever flavors you add. Vodka makes a good mixing medium. Add any herb and you will taste their robust notes.

Gin is like the onion. Gin brings flavor, but you can’t just eat a plate of onions. Complement this clear spirit with additions to its very botanical and floral notes. You’ve heard of lemon ginseng tea. Ginseng is of course a root that has no real relation to gin, BUT I like to say lemon makes gin sing. Lemon verbena, lemon grass, lemon balm pair well with gin.

Coriander, sage, and thyme bring out complexities in the botanicals of gin while rosemary and gin bear similar notes so you can make a strong pair when you put these two together.

Tequilas earthy profile makes a good base flavor for more botanical flavors like lavender, sage, coriander/cilantro, and basil.

Whiskey boasts smoky, leathery flavors so it holds up against stronger flavor profiles of sage, tarragon, and rosemary, but you can also use herbs to mellow the boldness with lighter herbs like our lemons, chamomile, and mints.

Rum is probably one of my least favorites because of its sweetness so I like to flesh out any earthiness of the sugar and lighten the flavors with mint, lemon flavors, oregano or thyme for a cleaner earthier flavor. 

Techniques

To pair liquor and herbs in the glass, you need techniques. You could muddle or garnish with herbs. Add more depth and flavor to your cocktails by making simple syrups, shrubs, or bitters.

Simple Syrup is essentially melted sugar in a little bit of water. Simple syrup is a key ingredient for any drink that requires a sweet component. Most drinks rely on a sweet component, either sugar, honey or agave, to give them balance and depth.

Herb-infused syrups add an extra layer of a flavor you might be trying to convey while sweetening. It removes the need for plain sugar and ensures that all of the sweetness doesn’t settle to the bottom of the glass and forces you to stir.

To make one and a half cups of botanical simple syrup:

● 1/2 cup fresh cut herb of your choice

● 1 cup water

● 1 cup sugar

Combine water, sugar, and leaves in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring until sugar dissolves. Simmer for 1 minute. Remove from heat and let syrup steep about 30 minutes. Discard the leaves or pour syrup through a mesh strainer into a glass container. You can use the syrup immediately or let it cool to room temperature. Store in a covered glass jar in the refrigerator for up to one month.

Shrubs allow you to add fruity flavors, refreshing vinegar notes, and herbs to a beverage. You also get a textural difference since a fizziness results when shrubs ferment.

To make 3 cups of a cold process shrub:

● 1 pound chopped fruit of your choice

● 2 cups sugar

● 2 cups vinegar of your choice

● few herb leaves of your choice

● optional spices

Assemble sliced or gently mashed fruit in a bowl and toss with sugar. Let the mixture sit, covered securely with a towel on your kitchen counter for about 2 days. Stir once a day - it should start looking juicy. After 2 days, strain the mixture into a measuring cup, discard the fruit/leaves, combine the syrup with approximately an equal amount of vinegar. Go slow with the vinegar and taste as you go so that you get a shrub sharp enough for you. Pour into a jar and store in the fridge.

Bitters carry flavors and often balance layered cocktails.

Finally, the finishing touch of your cocktail: garnishing – the easiest way to incorporate herbs. A leaf or flower on the side of a drink tells your nose where your tastebuds need to go. Pineapple sage, nasturtium, lavender blooms add color and delicate details, but the green of the herbs add substance to a glass. Clap mint (do not muddle mint or you risk expressing chlorophyll rather than the essential oil) and place atop the ice in a drink. Singe a spring of rosemary and then dunk into your drink for use as a swizzle stick!

After a long day of gardening, an herby cocktail is the perfect reward. Reap the hard-earned herbs of your labor! Happy gardening!

Be a Plant Patriot

The word patriot is used quite often in conversations today in our politically divided country. It seems both sides of opposing views believe they are the patriots, and the others are anti-American.

There is one issue facing our country on which we can all agree. It is an aspect of our lives over which we can have complete control. It is an action we can take to improve our country’s natural environment. It is the simple act of choosing to use American native plants in our landscapes.

Every plant in this landscape except for the lawn is native to North Florida, from the trees to the shrubs to the wildflowers. Photo by Donna Legare.

We need to go beyond our personal desires. Rather than selecting a flower color because it is our favorite, choose a plant for its value for bees. Rather than wanting variegated foliage for a splash of color, use a plant that supplies winter food for birds. Rather than a plant whose colors coordinate with the drapes in your living room, go for a plant that will support high protein insect life which is the necessary food for baby birds and countless other animals.

For instance, most favored bee plants are American natives. They range from diminutive wildflowers to huge shade trees. Not only are nectar and pollen important, but the timing of when it is produced can be critical to the survival of our pollinators. Examples are goldenrod, purple coneflower, wild azaleas, native blueberry, red maple, basswood, and Chickasaw plum.

For winter bird food, plant wax myrtle, bluestem palmetto, red cedar, winged elm, and yaupon holly. I love watching cardinals, catbirds, mockingbirds, and hermit thrush eating bluestem palmetto berries in our yard.

Native plants play a critical part in producing insects which, in turn, feed birds throughout the year. Native plants can be added to your existing landscape, or you can make space for them by removing invasive plants such as nandina from your yard. You may even want to make room by removing ornamental landscape plants that do not serve an ecological function. Choose a sparkleberry, greybeard, American plum, or redbud tree instead of a crape myrtle. Choose a mixed row of wax myrtle, Simpson’s stopper, saw palmetto, and yaupon holly instead of a loropetalum hedge.

This caterpillar is eating sassafras. The mated spicebush swallowtail female lays her eggs on spicebush, sassafras, and red bay which are all native to North Florida. Photo by Donna Legare.

Most of a moth’s life cycle takes place in the canopies of large trees. We ground-based humans are seldom aware of the insects living their lives in the tree canopy. Dr. Doug Tallamy, in his book Bringing Nature Home, informs us that there are 543 species of butterflies and moths that lay their eggs in the canopies of all the oak species in our country. In plum and black cherry trees native to North America, 456 species of mostly moths begin their lives. The eggs hatch into caterpillars which are basically soft bags of protein, the perfect food for growing baby birds. The other side of this story is that if you have a Chinese tallow tree taking up space in your yard, only three species of moths are known to use the tree in North America. If you had a crabapple, 311 species may use it.

There are two ways to be an American plant patriot. First is to add American native plants to your landscape, from wildflowers, grasses, shrubs, and small trees to towering shade trees. All of them have an important part to play which helps wildlife flourish. Our nation’s natural ecosystems have evolved over the eons with plants and animals living in a beautiful balance.

Secondly, learn to identify invasive plants such as Chinese tallow, ligustrum, Japanese privet, wisteria, coral ardisia, skunk vine, nandina, and others. Try your best to remove them from your yard. Have a zero-tolerance policy toward invasive plants. If unchecked, these plants will push out native plants and we will slowly become the United States of European or Asian Plants. Let us keep our natural and urban areas American.

Your yard in an urban or suburban setting can be critical for the survival of wildlife. Urban areas suffer the most from invasive plant infestations. Chinese camphor and ligustrum trees now dominate the tree canopy of some of our older neighborhoods.

Whether you are in the city, suburbs, or countryside let us all pull together and remove invasive plants and replace them with American native plants in our yards and gardens. Be a Plant Patriot!

Seven Simple Actions to Help Birds

It is discouraging to read about the significant losses of birds that we have experienced worldwide in the last 50 years. The 2019 report on the status of birds documented the loss of three billion breeding birds since 1970, about the time I graduated from high school. Soon after I read that report, I came across an article by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology with a discussion of things we as individuals can do in our own yards and in our everyday lives that have a positive effect on the lives of birds and other wildlife. The author recommends seven simple actions to help birds:

Home-made BirdSaver prevents window strikes at the author’s home. Photo by Donna Legare.

Make windows safer. Most of us have had a bird hit a window now and then, some more than others. Birds are seeing the reflection of trees and think they can fly on through, only to sustain injuries or be killed upon impact. Sometimes a bird just seems stunned and soon flies away but we do not know if the bird has left to die elsewhere. If it is a small enough window, decals will keep birds from hitting the window. For larger windows consider making and installing an Acopian BirdSaver, also known as a Zen curtain, which is constructed of parachute cord. See www.birdsavers.com for instructions or to purchase. They are easy to make and work beautifully.

Rob Williams got started by planting three native trees and a bed of native shrubs that will provide excellent habitat for birds as they grow. Note the pollinator plants along the house foundation. Photo by Donna Legare.

Plant native plants and reduce the size of your lawn. Native plants are the basis of the ecological food web that sustains birds and other wildlife. A good place to begin is to plant a native tree this winter. If you have room, choose one that gets large and provides habitat in its eventual canopy. Live oak, white oak, Shumard oak, and longleaf pine are a few good choices, but there are many from which to choose. If your yard already has large overstory trees, consider planting smaller trees and native shrubs like redbud and arrowwood viburnum in their shade. Keep leaves and pine straw below the crown of the tree, rather than lawn, which will provide additional habitat. For smaller yards, consider planting a pollinator garden focusing on native wildflowers and grasses.

Enjoy shade grown coffee that is certified Bird Friendly. Coffee plants grown in full sun, as most coffee is, require environmentally harmful pesticides and fertilizers and offer no habitat for migrating birds. A forest canopy above the shade grown coffee, which is grown organically, will help migratory birds survive winter.

Use less plastic. Plastic takes 400 years to degrade and 91% of plastics are not recycled. Avoid single use plastic and recycle it if you use it. The article cited that, “to date at least 700 species of marine animals including shorebirds have been entangled by plastic or mistaken it for food leading to suffocation or starvation.”

Avoid pesticides, especially systemic ones like neonicotinoids that are lethal to birds and the insects they consume.

Keep cats indoors. Your cat will be healthier and safer and birds and other wildlife will benefit. Look into building a creative catio (cat patio). One will be featured on Apalachee Audubon Society’s annual Wildlife Friendly Yard Tour in February this year. See www.apalachee.org for more information.

Watch birds and share what you see. Teach others, especially children, about birds and nature. You may want to learn how to use eBird, an app which enables you to become a citizen scientist by reporting the birds that you observe adding to worldwide data.

To this I would add a few more suggestions. If you feed birds, keep your feeder clean and always provide fresh seed. Emphasis should be on creating habitat for birds while using a feeder as a focal point to bring birds up close for observation. Make sure the feeder is squirrel-proofed, so you don’t spend energy on being mad at squirrels. There are squirrel-proof bird feeders that work.

A northern cardinal maintains his plumage by fluffing and spreading his feathers in the bath. Photo by Stephen Gensits.

Provide a source of clean water in your yard. This can be as simple as a bird bath or as grand as a garden pond or stream. During the dry period last October, we set up a sprinkler near our bird bath that watered the native shrubs behind the bath. Within minutes and over the next half-hour two Ruby-crowned Kinglets, a Yellow-rumped Warbler, a Brown Thrasher, four Northern Cardinals, three Carolina Chickadees, two Carolina wrens, a Hermit Thrush, and a Downy Woodpecker all showed up enjoying the spray of water on the branches of the Virginia sweetspire shrubs. Several hopped into the bath and splashed. All seemed to be having a great time!

Birds bring joy into our lives. If you enjoy nature and birds, try to incorporate some of these simple actions to make life better for them and other wildlife. What we do in our own yard matters.