Drinks / Shire City Herbals

We're beyond the fourth of July, and that means summer has officially arrived in the Berkshires. I know we've been wearing our winter sweaters lately, but the warm weather has returned again, hopefully for at least a few months! And that means it's time to celebrate outside, preferably with your favorite people. The following recipe is a refreshing, healthy and hydrating drink that can be made with or without the addition of alcohol. I know so many people who, for one reason or the other, do not imbibe. And let's be honest, drinking plain club soda at every social gathering can bet a bit boring! Try making this drink, a few pints at a time or in large batches for big groups. This way, you have a base of slightly sweet and tangy citrus soda, that everyone, even the kids, can enjoy. Simply add tequila or rum to an individual glass for a customized adult beverage. If only it were this easy to make everyone happy, all the time. Cheers to summer!

Makes 2 pint-sized drinks and is easy to scale up for larger groups.

Ingredients:

1 cup fresh squeezed ruby red grapefruit (about 1 large grapefruit)

1 ounce fresh squeezed lime juice (about 1 lime)

1-2 tablespoons of raw honey, or more for a sweeter drink

1 ounce Fire Cider African Bronze or raw apple cider vinegar

soda water

ice

Method:

First, juice the grapefruit. I got about one cup from one large grapefruit.

Then, juice the lime again. One lime gave one ounce of juice, pretty handy!

I mixed 1 tablespoon of raw, African Bronze Honey into the lime juice. This honey has a strong floral, very sweet and slightly smoky flavor. I think that orange blossom honey would also mix really well with the other flavors. Use more honey for a sweeter drink. Mix until the honey is completely dissolved in the lime juice.

Combine the lime, honey and grapefruit and stir well.

Add ice to two pint glasses.

Split the juice and honey mixture between the two glasses.

Add ½ ounce of Fire Cider African Bronze, or plain Apple Cider Vinegar, to each glass.

Top each glass off with soda water (club soda) and stir gently.

Optional:

Add an ounce of tequila or white rum to each glass.

Salt the rim of each pint glass before adding the ingredients.

Garnish with a lime or grapefruit wedge and enjoy!

It's nearly the weekend, and we've got three cocktails fresh from Boston to get things started! All three of these strong and smoky cocktails were created by Apollo Clark, you can follow him on twitter @apolloclark 

The Boston Cigar

1.5 oz. Old Overholt rye whiskey

3/4 oz. Tobacco liquor

1/3 oz. Fire Cider

cherry, lime slice 

Photo by @ApolloClark on Twitter

Combine all ingredients and stir well. Pour into a rocks glass, with a few rocks. Add cherry and lime slice and serve.

Tastes like a good cigar, probably goes well with one too.  

Spicy Manhattan

1.5 oz. Old Overholt rye whiskey

3/4 oz. Carpano Antica

1/3 oz. Fire Cider

3 dash orange bitters

cherry

Combine all ingredients and stir well. Pour into a rocks glass, with a few rocks, or none at all. Add a cherry and serve.

Photo of Smoky Nail on Fire by @ApolloClark on Twitter

Smoky Nail on Fire

1.5 oz. Islay scotch

1.5 oz. Drambuie

1 oz. Fire Cider

Stir to combine in a rocks glass with a few large rocks. 

Drinking vinegar for its myriad health benefits goes back to ancient Greece, no wait, even further, to 5000 BCE when Babylonians were using date palms to make vinegar. Warriors throughout history have used vinegar mixed with water for strength and energy. Vinegar drinks and vinegar tonics infused with herbs, roots, flowers, you name it, have been around for many centuries.

In New England farmers have been making a drink called 'switchel' to keep them hydrated and ward off heat stroke during the long, hot summer days:

"They drank a quenching beverage that functioned much like modern Gatorade: switchel, also called switzel or haymaker’s punch. It contained water, a sweetener—either molasses, maple syrup, honey or brown sugar—ginger, and cider vinegar. All the ingredients (except water) happen to be sources of potassium—an electrolyte. Molasses is especially high in potassium."

Apple Cider Vinegar is an incredibly medicinal food since it contains several different beneficial acids plus beta-carotene, amino acid, bone building minerals, enzymes, magnesium, potassium, pectin and tannins. No wonder humans have been using this super food since we figured out how to preserve apples in the form of vinegar! Here are my three favorite vinegar drinks, aka, switchels, to help keep you cool and healthy this summer:

Dana's Pomegranate Switchel

Ingredients to make one cup of Switchel concentrate:

• ¼ cup of Fire Cider
• 3 tablespoons fresh ginger juice
• 3 tablespoons pomegranate molasses
• 1 tablespoon raw honey

Shake well to combine all ingredients.

Serve about 2-4 ounces of concentrate over ice, top with soda water to make a pint.

Store leftover Switchel mix in the refrigerator.

Citrus Switchel

Makes 2 servings-

• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar or Fire Cider
• juice from 1/2 a grapefruit
• 1 1/2 tablespoons, or more to taste, raw, local wildflower honey
• Soda water or plain water
• 2 lime wedges

Combine the first 3 ingredients and makes sure to dissolve all the honey.

Fill two pint glasses with ice and split the switchel mix between the glasses.

Top with soda water and garnish with a lime wedge.

Dr. Earl Mindell's Switchel,  from his book 'Amazing Apple Cider Vinegar' which is also where I got some of the information for this blog post.

Makes 2 servings:

• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar or Fire Cider
• 1 1/2 tablespoons black strap molasses
• 2 cups warmed water (to melt the molasses)

Combine and pour over ice.