Are you the organized type? Do you have a theme for your garden? Moon gardens, potagers, kill strip gardens, pollinator gardens, xeriscapes are a few popular motifs these days. This year mine might be, “Look what’s survived this Northern Nevada summer.” So many challenges this year, I hope you all are taking a second to enjoy your efforts. Smelling the flowers if you will. Or maybe drinking your flowers?
If we have spent any time together you probably know I enjoy a crafty cocktail. Which reminds me, thank you Jo Pett for years of craftiness in such an iconic setting always served with style and grace. If you also enjoy imbibing a well-made beverage why not plant yourself up a cocktail or mocktail-themed garden? A garden a little more specialized than say an edible landscape. A drinking landscape if you will. Let’s do better than lemon with our water. A homemade cucumber and basil lemonade on a hot summer afternoon will cure what ails you, with or without vodka.
The fine print before we continue, PLEASE do your reading before ingesting any plants. Proper ID is essential. If you are not 100% on the identification of a plant, do not consume it. You can always ask at our local nurseries, Cooperative Extension office, or the Fallon Gardening group on Facebook. A good plant app on your phone can help as well, or a Peterson guide. If you’re up for exploring the cocktail subject in greater detail and want a few fun recipes, The Drunken Botanist by Amy Stewart is a good read. She explores, “The plants that create the world’s great drinks.” Next step, do yourself a favor and invest in a shaker and/or a muddler. Both really help bring out the flavor and aroma of your herbs, veggies, fruit, or other plants. Also, an old mason jar works great to hold your beverages but I highly recommend a nice glass. You deserve it!
The list of fresh ingredients you can use is pretty endless. For fresh, easy additions that all grow well here I can recommend (but not all in the same glass) lavender of course and peppery, gorgeous nasturtium blossoms, elderflowers, rose petals, fennel, hyssop, lemon balm, and Thai basil. Additionally, many folks are not aware that lilac blossoms are edible. The fragrant, delicate blossoms are my favorite addition to champagne. As you late summer prune your herbs and roses you might consider adding snips to your ice cube trays. Frozen mint and rose petal cubes are wonderful for iced tea. Also, bright blue, cucumber-flavored borage flowers hold up well when frozen. They are tasty in club soda or any number of gin drinks.
An under-used must-have for a cocktail garden is the tall, easy to grow, (but needs regular water) perennial herb, lovage. It has a strong celery flavor that is perfect for a bloody mary and has hollow stems that you can use as a straw. Kelli Mae Kelly tells me the leaves make potato salad sing as well. Bonus, it has flowers that are irresistible to any number of beneficial insects. I know everyone loves bacon in (everything) their bloody mary but you can also add cilantro, dill, or chive blossoms. If you grow your own horseradish, you can even use the leaves as horseradish root is best harvested after a freeze.
If you’re super crafty you might make up your own bitters. Originally, secret recipes sold as medicine. Bitter recipes have been around for hundreds of years. Nowadays they are known more as a digestive supplement. Cocktail pros use them to enhance the complexity in a cocktail by including layered flavors from a few drops of bitters. Recipes to make your own bitters can be found all over the web. In general, they involve soaking/ stepping sticks and twigs, leaves and fruit, berries, roots in a neutral spirit, vodka or grain alcohol for anywhere from a few weeks to some long months. Traditional ingredients include black walnut leaf, birch bark, juniper berries, fennel seed, burdock root, hops, wormwood, dill, coriander, mustard seed, calendula, artichoke leaves. I might add chicory and motherwort (hello bitter!) to the list as well. Crafting your own could be a fun experiment that might end up as thoughtful dropper full of liquid summer to include in your holiday gifts.
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