Raise a glass with: Bobby Morrison, bar manager at Restaurant Pine
If you want to add some truly homegrown flavours to your cocktail list, it's time to pull on the wellies, says Bobby Morrison, bar manager at Restaurant Pine in Northumberland
When I joined Pine, the brief was clear: use as much sustainable, locally grown, brewed, distilled and foraged produce as possible.
I was hardly green-fingered – I couldn't tell an elm from an elder –and the closest thing I'd done to foraging was finding an old KitKat down the back of the sofa, but nine months, a Michelin star and a Green Michelin star later, I'm here to share what I've learned.
First thing's first, find yourself some good gardening gloves and a pair of wellies.
Next, do your homework – there are a vast amount of botany apps to use, such as PlantNet, and the Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland has a plant location map, which is a game changer. Simply type in the Latin name of what you're looking for and you get a rough area to search anywhere in the UK.
One of the staples we use in the restaurant is sorrel, which can be found in fields pretty much anywhere. It has a sharp and sour flavour and a light, thin texture, which makes it an almost perfect substitute for citrus in mojitos and sours. Other citrus substitutes include lemon balm, verbena and even scented geraniums (we currently have a delicious verbena and lemon geranium ‘limoncello' on our digestif list).
Now we could do with some sweetness. Wild seasonal fruits and berries may be obvious (brambles, sloes, damsons, crab apples, etc) but if you want to get really frisky (and live near a coastline) sea buckthorn is an explosion of tart passion fruit glory; likewise, pineapple weed (a form of wild camomile) can give you even more tiki flavours without the air miles. Simply blend up into syrups or infuse into water or spirits.
For a touch of savoury, start with cherry blossoms and rowan shoots, with their delicious nutty flavour, which can be whipped up into a wild orgeat or infused to make a nut-free ‘amaretto'. And that's just the beginning: you can also try kale, pea shoots, nettle, anise hyssop and sweet cicely.
In all honesty, I'm barely scratching the surface of what is possible. All that you need to do is get out there and be creative. The worst-case scenario is you get some fresh air and exercise, and in the best case you've got an interesting and delicious new cocktail for your list.
Happy foraging.
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