I am one lucky lady. At the cabin a few weekends ago my Dad's very thoughtful girlfriend Donna gifted me a ziplock bag full of wild Whiteshell blueberries she hand picked in summer and froze. Last year was a fantastic year for blueberries in our little corner of the Canadian Shield, but with the bumper crop of berries also came a mosquito invasion that made foraging unbearable. Knowing the effort that went into picking those berries made the gift just that much sweeter.
I brain stormed for a few long weeks about how to honour the blueberries. Plans for pie, muffins or coffee cake crossed my mind. But booze is always the right answer. Cordial takes about two months to develop, so this batch will be ready just in time for Mother's Day and my Dad's birthday. Best way to ensure I will continue to get a cut of Dad's foraged bounty - turn it into booze and share it with him. It helps that last weekend Dave's Oma gave me a box full of stunning antique mason jars.
I considered actually making my own alcohol with the berries, by starting from scratch using yeast. But the risk of wasting the bounty on an experimental recipe freaked me out. Making a cordial using vodka is fool proof. I made a similar recipe last Christmas using over ripe blackberries and loved the results. This time to compliment the blueberries, and jump on the herbal cocktail band wagon, I'm trying one jar with mint and one with rosemary. This is a very loose recipe, you can use any fruit and flavours you can think of, and the ratios are far from strict.
