Seville Season Part 2 - up to my oxters

Three days spent in the vibrant aromatic company of boiling Seville oranges and rum, not a bad use of the dark February days. The house is infused with the smell of marmalade and I'm sure all that citrusy humidity is good for the skin. I've re-jigged the recipe a bit since last year's experiment as I'm keen to make it less cloudy, whilst keeping the deep bitter orange flavour.

30kg of oranges has made about 45 litres of rum liqueur, a drink so darkly decadent that I think it needs a serving suggestion of a small crystal goblet and a recumbent position on velvet cushions.

And as a reward for her heroic slicing and steeping labours, Mother's Ruin is taking a day off from the Gin Palace tomorrow to go to White Hart Lane and cheer for the mighty Spurs. COYS etc. 

Seville season Part 1 - Late night adventures

At last Seville orange season is here and it's time to turn last year's successful experiment with making bitter orange rum into a reality. I've taken the week off work with the plan of making about 40litres of liquid drunken marmalade!

First a ride out on the N26 to New Spitalfields wholesale fruit and veg market with the shopping trolley in tow. To start with a bleak scene round the back of the now closed Olympic Park. Midnight rain at the tipping point of sleet, sodium glow and slick shining black roads. Once through the gates the buzz of the market is felt, and the light of the big warehouses pulls me in. Inside a wonderland of brilliantly coloured and high stacked vegetables and fruit, twirling balletic mini forklift trucks zipping in and out of the aisles, traders and buyers chewing the fat, and down a small side corridor boxes of wonderful  knobbly Sevilles.

We struck an excellent deal and filled the trolley to bursting with bitter and sweet oranges and hauled them off into the wet East London night.

By Ambrose Heath and published in 1939 by Faber and Faber
Foreword
"This collection of divers drinks is offered for
all those occasions when drinking is desirable: on
a winter's evening by the fire, on the shady verge
of the tennis court, at a party, in a pub; with
friends, or aquaintances or those even dearer,
wherever they may happen to be together: to the
advancement of the brewer and the wine mer-
chant, and the confusion of dull dogs"
June 1939

From this wonderful book full of recipes for home made liqueurs and other alcoholic delights I bring you...

The Sloe Gin Rickey
Squeeze the juice of half a good-sized lime into a tumbler containing a lump or two of ice. Add three-quaters of a gill of Sloe Gin, and fill up with cold soda water

Happy New Year 2013

 
The hard frost never came and it rained and rained. The ground was heavy and newly born streams created their own course down through the orchard. Over two days we shifted the bark mulch, bag by sodden bag from Park End Farm stockyard where Brian keeps his vintage tractors.We loaded up our elderly landrover drove the 1/4 of a mile up the hill to home, then unloaded and carried the mulch across the field to spread on the beds.

  The beds looked great when we finished and the sun came out briefly one afternoon and lit up our golden reward.

New Year came and after an lovely evening of prosecco and damson gin cocktails, and a day of loafing and chatting with friends the annual muck day was upon us. Forty bags of the very finest horse manure to feed the new rhubarb crowns and gooseberry and blackcurrant bushes. Delivered curbside by an impressively butch truck. And thank god for the pirated Wickes trolley which meant we could shift eight bags at a time. It's got my name on it.

Mother's Christmas Message

The Gin Place in Wood Street Market will be open up until 5pm on Sat 22nd December and then closed until January 10th. For online sales last orders will be up to midnight on Friday 21st, dispatched on the morning of the 22nd - then closed for business until Friday 28th Dec.

I'll be up with family in Cumbria for the week, and very busy taking a wee nip of sherry, a pie or two and, between times, shifting the bark mulch which arrived today and is sitting in a very wet and heavy looking heap in the yard at Park End Farm. The delivery truck eyed our narrow lane with a great deal of suspicion and declined to back down the half mile to the orchard, so then delivered to the farm a few fields away.

I've got my fingers crossed for a strong hard frost so we can get the tractor over the ground to fetch it up. Otherwise it's a much slower filthier job filling bags and using the landrover.

A Christmas (Cock)tail ~
Rhubarb and Strawberry Gorgeousness
Serves 2: Take about a punnet's worth of frozen strawberries, the juice of one freshly squeezed orange and whizz up in a blender. Add a little more juice if needed so it is not too thick in consistency. Then add two generous shots of Rhubarb and Ginger Vodka per person and a couple of drops of rhubarb bitters if you have them (don't worry if not - it's still delicious without). Whizz all up together quickly and serve in tall glasses with as outrageous a garnish as you can muster.

Mother's Ruin wishes you a very merry Christmas and New Year!!

It's been busy in the market in the last few weeks before Christmas with Damson Gin in particular flying off the shelves. Only a few bottles left until next month's decanting. It looks like a bottle of my good good stuff is going to end up in a few stockings. In between the mincepies I think I'll spend much of it behind a wheel barrow, I have 3 tonnes of bark mulch arriving next week for the orchard and about a tonne of manure arriving on the allotment. I shall steel myself to the task fortified by roast potatos and Christmas pudding. And just to limber up and get in the party season Mother's Ruin is going out Morris dancing round Hampstead tonight, starting at the Holly Bush at 7.30 and moving on to the flask at about 8ish.

Mother's Ruin has a tiny film made by Film Direction who run the Walthamstow Film Festival and also while away the hours by creating witty viral marketing shorts...
It depicts just one of the medicinal uses of sloe gin





http://youtu.be/XTPV0BcWdVs