Making Spirits Bright!

For Christmas, my sister wanted to make some fruit liquor out of some of the wild picked summer fruit that's been sitting in the freezer. A google on the internet found her the recipe (equal parts fruit and spirit and 1/4 part sugar). We've got both a beautiful indigo colored blueberry jar and a violet hued huckleberry jar doing their thing on the kitchen counter.

 Not just beautiful and delicious, these spirits will have medicinal properties. They are high in antioxidants, help with the health of blood vessels and also keep blood sugar levels in check (despite being high in sugar themselves). Yep, blueberry/huckleberry spirits are pretty handy (and did I mention delicious?) to have on hand.

Since I was with her at the liquor store while she was deciding on which vodka brand to honor with her berries, I picked up some wine to infuse. After I got home I looked on the net and found all kinds of recipes for making herb wine from scratch (how fun!) but nothing very exciting for infused wine. I picked up some cheap and cheerful Naked Grape reds (nothing I'd bring to a friends house for dinner, but decent, and uncomplicated enough to layer some more interesting herbal notes over). And once home I staked out my dried herb collection and threw together some herbs. Probably I should have mulled it over (see what I did there- heh) but I just threw together two spur of the moment mixes.

The first is a general winter tonic with burdock root, elderberries, cinnamon, wood betony, and vitex berries.

The second is a relaxing blend with rose and lavender flowers, skullcap, and milk thistle.

Talia's berries have to wait a month, but these wines should be ready to drink in a couple weeks. Wish me luck- if these turn out well, herb-infused wine might be my 2010 Christmas gift go-to.