Spiking Foraged Grapes - Marriage of Experiences

There's nothing better than a tart, punchy cocktail on a summer day. It's the best when you have a killer infusion ready and waiting. Especially, when it's inspired by creative friends & powered by an ingredient you gathered.

Sour Cherry Bounce Riff -
Green Mustang Grapes, Vermouth & Dry Caramelized Sugar

Fairly new to the world of foraging, I'm often seeking guidance from experienced friends. I was fortunate enough to join Misti Norris and Brock Middleton in Dallas for a walk in the woods. These creative chefs have been spinning webs of creative dishes with wild ingredients for some time. Who better to go with?

Brock Middleton & A Tree Covered in Mustang Grape Vines 

We didn't find much to take home that day, but we did come upon a series of trees covered with mustang grape vines. At the time, the grapes were green and crazy tart. We grabbed some because we could definitely make something happen.

Local Wild Grapes

After a little time in and out of the fridges in Dallas, it was time to celebrate our find at home. I sat at the kitchen table crunching a few wondering about the best way to temper the astringency. Then I remembered when my friend Peter shared his homemade sour cherry bounce with me years ago. So delicious! A bounce is simply a complex spirit, sugar and sour cherries. It's a wonderful way to transform the excess of summer into a winter warmer. So why not transform the green of spring into a refreshing summer? 

Green Mustang Grapes + Meat Tenderizer

Unripe grapes are quite dense. I wanted to keep them whole, but I was worried that there would be trouble with a short term infusion. Punching them with holes would help guarantee success, but the common pointy objects for puncturing all these grapes would take forever. An old school meat tenderizer solved that problem.

Dry Caramelized Sugar Cloud in Vermouth with Mustang Grapes

Decisions on the remaining ingredients weren't hard to come up with. A dry vermouth for a green grape play made all the sense in the world. For the sugar, there was a quart of dry caramelized sugar that was waiting thanks to Stella. Those notes add another level of complexity that follows the line of a typical bounce leveraging the depth of brandy.

Rum + Brown Sugar + Green Mustang Grapes

At the end of the day, we all create based on life experiences. We craft compilations of what we've learned from people who have shared their wealth of knowledge with us. Memory elements harmonized into a single experience with the intent to be an inception for another adventurer. The inspired to inspire spiral upwards forever progressing the art. Or maybe we just made a neat summer drink to try out? Hmm...


As always, please share your discoveries to keep the ideas bouncing.

Free Summer Dehydrator & Artichoke Tea - Connecting Every Little Bit

We've been known in these parts to kombucha anything that makes sense in our crazy heads. When you consider tea as something dried, flavorful and complex to be steeped, it's not that far afield to play with an alternative.

Artichoke Scrap Kombucha

I always find myself hanging out with with friends prepping for service. This often puts me in a position to take note of the odds and ends that often end up in the compost. Sometimes there are quality ingredients that have real potential that only require a little experimentation to unlock the beauty.

Artichoke Scraps Before Drying

In this case, Ian was breaking down a ton of artichokes for the hearts. As I watched him mound up the pile of leaves and stem bits, I wondered if I could make a tea with it. I asked him if I could have some. His look quickly switched from 'huh, that's weird' to 'oh yeah, it's you...'. He was more than happy to oblige. So off I went with a big bag of thistle scraps to play with.

Sun Dried Artichoke Scrap Tea

When I got them back to the kitchen, they needed to be dried to concentrate the flavor for tea. I decided to set them out in the sun on a cooling rack. In total, it took a couple days of catching rays. The only trouble I had was the rainy spell in between that delayed the process.

Car "Greenhouse" Sun Dried Sassafras

Within the same time span, I foraged some sassafras while I was visiting Eva. I left the branches in the back seat of my car on a sunny day and found the leaves completely dried out. We've all noticed this effect one way or another, likely undesirable. In the summer here, the cabin of your car is a greenhouse. Also consider that running the A/C dehumidifies as well. A free sun powered dehydrator!

At the end of the day, preparing and preserving ingredients is all about using what's available. More often than not, there are resources at your fingertips that don't require special tools or equipment to achieve what you desire. Sometimes all it takes is a little thinking to link what's been done, your experience and coincidence to coalesce into something pretty damn cool.


As always, please share your discoveries to keep the ideas bouncing.

Coffee or Tea? - Just a Starting Point

There are rules and recipes for making all our favorite drinks. So many amazing folks out there endlessly practicing to concoct the perfect glass/cup of whatever you fancy. Balancing each one to perfection is of the moment art to be admired. The first sip can be a revelation. Now, ponder how any drink came to be. The origin stems from necessity, use of available ingredients and some level of preservation. When you think about these guidelines, all you need is in your kitchen even if you're out of "everything".

A couple years ago I was on an agua fresca kick. I was looking to infuse watermelon with a single ingredient other than mint, a little too refreshing and overdone. Initially, I was thinking acidity by adding dried hibiscus flowers, but that tanked hard with way too much astringency. Fortunately, I had chicory come in with the same order. All I did was sprinkle some on pieces of watermelon. It was bittersweet in the best possible way. Describing the flavor play wouldn't do it justice, so just try it.

So if chicory works, why not freshly ground coffee? Cold brewed watermelon coffee was born. So good!

Coffee ice cream is a favorite. Why not chicory, coconut milk & maple syrup? Vegan happens.

Often apple cider is too sweet and needs a touch of acid to make it great. A splash of apple cider vinegar does the trick. Infusing with hibiscus is way better.

If you think about tea as dried leaves with complexity, why not curry leaves in a kombucha? It adds a smoky element without fire. Thickened the fermented liquid as well. Crazy!

If your kombucha SCOBY needs sugar, why not koji, the sweet base for sake? A killer marriage of amazake & tea. Ultimately used to make a wonderful blueberry sauce to compliment a buttermilk umami ice cream.

If you like both coffee and tea, why not combine them? When there's cold brewed coffee in the fridge and garam masala hibiscus syrup around, there is really no choice. I couldn't stop drinking it.

Have you considered using the delicious flesh stuck to mango seeds as the sugar to feed your kombucha? What about infusing it with fresh elderflower you found on a walk and palm sugar that's been sitting in your pantry for a very long time. Perfect for a secondary fermentation. Gotta love natural carbonation.

Coffee or black tea dulce de leche is pretty great. Why not roasted medicinal reishi mushrooms?

Two years later we're still putting stuff on watermelon to tip the balance. No wild mint on the walk, but plenty of sassafras leaves. This definitely needs to be shared with family and friends.

Long story short, your favorite drink originated from experimentation and experience, so why not make a new one that's truly yours?

As always, please share your discoveries to keep the ideas bouncing.

Roasting Reishi Like Coffee - Bitter is the Next Umami

I'm pretty new to the world of foraging and was crazy excited when I found reishi on a walk with my friend Nick. The brilliant color on a tall, dead pine was a beacon from across the woods. The lacquered beauty of this fungus is really something to behold. You'll understand if you ever come upon one.

So, what's up with this mushroom? This fungi is not typically for eating. Pretty tough and bitter. From the little I've read, it's used in Asian medicine for detoxification and boosting immune response. I'd love to know more, so please reach out to share knowledge and resources on the subject. 

Based on a multitude of suggestions from friends on Instagram, dehydration to create a powder for extraction is the first step. Many of these cool cats also pushed sweet applications that sounded delicious. As the slices of reishi were drying, I noted a malty scent on top of the earthy mushroom that sealed the deal. 

One suggestion that really spoke to me was Jeremy's suggestion to roast the mushroom after dehydrating it. Hmm... YES! Roasting is a wonderful way to transform a nice flavor into something seriously complex and downright brilliant. So how do we get there without too much fuss? The answer is a hot air popcorn popper. 

For beginner coffee roasters just getting into the game, there's a method of using a hot air popcorn popper to make small batches. It's quite simple and has the best even heating for the price. Having done this for years, I figured cut up chunks of reishi would work just as well. 

And so it did. The picture above shows the first trial run and the browning consistency is pretty good. Just a matter of dialing it in. The aroma during the roast was killer. I can't wait to get the rest done for infusing. It just so happens I have a mildly smoked dulce de leche hanging around. 

As always, please share your discoveries to keep the ideas bouncing.