Growing Your Own Cocktails, Mocktails, Teas & Infusions. Jodi Helmer
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the bounty of cocktails, mocktails, teas, and infusions that you can make from plants growing in your garden.
Disclaimer: This book is not a field guide; it’s not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any disease. I am a gardener, not a doctor or nutritionist. Although I did extensive research to ensure accuracy, you must make sure to positively identify all plants before eating leaves, flowers, fruits, and roots. Some wild plants are poisonous or can have adverse effects. Avoid consuming any unfamiliar plants. Consult with qualified health professionals to verify the health benefits and safety of consuming plants.
Chapter 1
BRIEF HISTORIES OF YOUR FAVORITE DRINKS
Every drink has a story. Whether you prefer herbal teas, craft sodas, flavored waters, or classic cocktails, the beverages you drink today have evolved since they were first brewed, sipped, shaken, or stirred. In this chapter, we’ll focus on two general categories of drinks: cocktails and tea.
Shaking Up Cocktail Culture
Traditional cocktails were simple: mix spirits, sugar, water, and bitters—known as a bitter sling—and sip. A 1798 article in the British newspaper The Morning Post and Gazetteer was believed to be the first to mention the word “cocktail” but the practice of drinking spirits mixed with medicinal botanicals was common long before. Doctors often prescribed bitters made from herbs, fruits, flowers, bark, and roots believed to have medicinal properties to cure a range of ailments, infused in spirits such as gin. Although the earliest definition of cocktails (used in the 1862 book How to Mix Drinks) was limited to alcoholic drinks containing bitters (and not punches, sours, and toddies), it didn’t take long before cocktails were defined as all mixed drinks made with a combination of alcohol and mixers like soda and fruit juices.
A Manhattan is an example of a cocktail that was developed during the golden age of cocktails, before Prohibition (which was from 1920-1933).
During Prohibition, the seizure and disposal of alcohol by federal agents was common.
Most of the drinks we see on bar menus today, including the daiquiri, martini, old fashioned, and Manhattan, were introduced between the 1860s and 1920, when Prohibition began, mixologist and cocktail historian Derek Brown said on a 2019 episode of All Things Considered on NPR. This so-called golden age of cocktails saw bartenders experimenting with different recipes, creating some of the drinks we now consider classics.
Adding mixers to cocktails became more important during Prohibition because the quality of illicit spirits was poor. Adding honey, fruit juice, and soda helped mask the flavor and made cocktails more palatable.
In recent years, social media has driven bartenders and restaurants to increasingly compete not only for great-tasting but also great-looking cocktails.
Cocktails have come a long way since the days of bathtub gin, however. Although the craft cocktail movement has been going strong for two decades, the local food movement has intensified the demand for small-batch spirits, increased the growth of farm distilleries, and upped the competition to create cocktails worthy of Instagram.
The US distillery scene has grown by leaps and bounds in just the last two decades.
The United States now has more than 1,500 craft distilleries, up from just 68 in 2004, and a growing number are farm distilleries that grow their own fruits and grains or source them from local farms to produce artisanal spirits, according to the American Distilling Institute. Fans of the so-called grain-to-glass movement believe that using local, seasonal ingredients has a positive effect on the taste of distilled spirits and that using crops grown onsite allows distillers to create rum, gin, vodka, and whiskey that reflect the unique flavors of the region.
Restaurants with kitchen gardens can market their garden-to-glass drinks.
Rather than mixing craft spirits with mass-produced mixers, bartenders have embraced local ingredients. Restaurants in cities ranging from New York and San Francisco to Indianapolis and Las Vegas have even planted onsite gardens to harvest fresh fruits and herbs such as mint, basil, lavender, rosemary, and strawberries to use in their craft cocktails.
Mixing Craft Cocktails at Home
If fancy mixed drinks are your tipple of choice, there’s no need to leave the house to imbibe. Craft cocktails are now coming to your mailbox.
As meal kits have gained market share, cocktail subscription boxes have followed. The concept is similar: just as companies like Blue Apron curate all of the ingredients for make-at-home meals, companies offering cocktail subscription kits assemble and ship kits containing all of the ingredients for craft cocktails straight to your door.
Each subscription service has a different take on the model. Some deliver mini bottles of alcohol—just enough to make the featured recipe—while others ship craft cocktail ingredients with full-sized bottles of spirits to help you build your home bar. For subscribers, the kits are about more than the fixings for creative cocktails; they are educational, helping tipplers master the art of bartending.
Cocktail enthusiasts are also looking to build their bartending skills. Paul Clarke, editor of Imbibe magazine, told attendees at the 2016 Chicago Cocktail Summit that we are living in the golden age of at-home mixology.
Mocktail culture has come a long way since the days of simple Shirley Temples.
The craft cocktail revolution has also led to the rise of the mocktail movement. A portmanteau of “mock” and “cocktail” mocktails have all of the sophistication and flavor of craft cocktails with none of the alcohol. In May 2019, Distill Ventures released a study that found 61 percent of drinkers in the United Kingdom wanted better choices in nonalcoholic drinks. The study also noted that 83 percent of bar managers in Los Angeles called no-proof drinks a growing trend.
The Evolution of Mixers
Mixed drinks made with spirits and soda or a splash of water will always be popular. Craft sodas and flavored water have replaced big brands and bottled water as popular mixers for cocktails and mocktails. The global flavored water market reached $10.3 billion in 2018, with sales in the United States alone almost doubling between 2013 and 2018, according to Euromonitor International, and the market for craft sodas is expected to top $840 million by 2024. Flavors such as orange mango, blackberry cucumber, and strawberry watermelon—which can all be made with fruits and vegetables growing in your garden—were the top flavor combinations.
Online food magazine Eater declared, “Virgin drinks are growing up” noting that the mocktail revolution has made the Shirley Temple and virgin piña coladas obsolete