The Drunken Botanist: The Plants that Create the World's Great Drinks (52 page)

Apart from medieval remedies, the earliest liqueur made from the fruit was ratafia de cassis, a mixture of brandy and black currants that was allowed to soak for six weeks, and then was strained and blended with a sugar syrup. Today, crème de cassis is made by crushing the fruit and macerating it in straight alcohol—usually a neutral grape spirit—for two months. Then the fruit is pressed to expel the remaining juice and strained. The liqueur is piped into another vat, then mixed with beet sugar and water to adjust the sweetness and get the alcohol to about 20 percent ABV.

A one-quart bottle might contain the extract of just under a pound of fruit. In the case of higher-end “supercassis” liqueurs, the amount of fruit is doubled or tripled to make a thicker and fruitier drink. To judge the quality of a bottle of crème de cassis, shake it and observe how the liqueur coats the glass. A supercassis will leave behind a thick, burgundy-colored syrup. Cooks in Dijon don't just drink it; they also pour it over fromage blanc and use it in
bœuf bourguignon.

Crème de cassis enjoyed a boost in popularity in the late nineteenth century. It was common in French cafés to simply place a bottle on every table and let patrons add it to their own drinks. After World War II the mayor of Dijon, Félix Kir, poured a drink for visiting dignitaries that consisted of crème de cassis and white wine. The drink, which became known worldwide, is now called a Kir in his honor.

The true medicinal uses of black currants became better known around that time as well. With oranges in short supply in Britain during and after World War II, a black currant juice called Ribena was distributed free to children. High in vitamin C, antioxidants, and other healthy compounds, it kept many children from malnutrition. The fruit is still marketed as a “superfood” that may have a number of disease-fighting benefits.

Black currants, and the liqueurs made from them, are not well known in the United States, owing in part to a strange quirk in the agricultural laws. The plant acts as host to a disease called white pine blister rust that kills eastern pine trees. The disease cannot spread from one pine tree to another; it must first make a stop on a currant bush, where it produces a particular kind of spore that allows it to reinfect a pine tree. In the 1920s, the timber industry
lobbied to have the currant banned, in spite of the fact that simple forest management practices could have interrupted the disease cycle. The spores can travel up to 350 miles from pine tree to currant bush but can only travel a thousand feet from currant bush back to pine tree. This makes it fairly simple to stop the disease from spreading; foresters simply have to keep the currants at least one thousand feet away from the trees. It also helps that at least 20 percent of pines are naturally resistant, and the rest will only become infected if the weather is particularly damp when the spores are traveling.

The ban was lifted nationwide in 1966, but many states kept the restriction in place. Cornell agriculturalist Steven McKay, who had fond memories of currants from his travels in Europe as a student, has worked to abolish the restriction and encourage farmers to grow the crop. Now disease-resistant varieties, modern fungicides, and a better understanding of how the disease is transmitted make blister rust a thing of the past. Still, several states on the East Coast continue to outlaw the growing of currant bushes.

In Europe, black currants were involved in another notable legal tangle. Cassis was central to one of the most important court cases in the early days of the formation of the European Union. In France, crème de cassis was bottled at 15 to 20 percent ABV, but an exporter found that it could not be sold as “liqueur” in Germany because in that country, the alcohol content had to be at least 25 percent. The court case that followed in 1978, now referred to as the Cassis de Dijon case, determined that laws established in one member country must be recognized in another, establishing the principle of mutual recognition that paved the way for more robust trade among EU nations.

CACAO

Theobroma cacao

malvaceae (mallow family)

T
he cacao is the most unlikely of fruits. It comes from a tropical evergreen tree that prefers to grow within 10 degrees' north and south latitude of the equator. When mature, it produces ten thousand blossoms in a season. Fewer than fifty of those flowers will ripen into fruit, and only if they have been pollinated by flying midges or particular species of ants.

The fruit takes the form of an enormous pod the size and shape of a football. Each pod contains up to sixty beans surrounded by a soft pulp. The pulp is tempting to birds and monkeys because it is so rich in sugar and fat. The beans themselves are not as interesting to mammals because of their bitter flavor, so they get left behind to go to seed.

Jungle animals aren't the only ones who like the juicy pods. If they are left alone on the ground, cacao will ferment spontaneously. Spanish explorers were surprised to arrive in Guatemala and see dugout canoes filled with cacao fruit. The fruit would ferment until the bottoms of the canoes were filled with “an abundant liquor of the smoothest taste, between sour and sweet, which is of the most refreshing coolness.” The Spaniards came looking for gold, but they found chocolate, the next best thing.

It is no small miracle that chocolate and booze arise spontaneously in nature. Even today, chocolate is made by fermenting the beans for several days to allow richer and more complex flavors to emerge. They are then dried, roasted, and cracked open so that the nibs—the meaty part of the bean—can be extracted. The nibs are ground into a powder or paste that, along with a little sugar, becomes dark chocolate. If milk is added, it becomes milk chocolate. And if the fat, called cacao butter, is extracted by itself and mixed with sugar, that is white chocolate.

Today chocolate can be found in any number of syrupy sweet liqueurs. Unfortunately, far too many bars sell a dreadful concoction known as a chocolate martini. Drink these if you must, but there are far more subtle and sophisticated ways to enjoy chocolate spirits. Dogfish Head makes a cacao beer called Theobroma that is intended to be a modern recreation of an ancient Olmec recipe. Based on residue analysis of pottery dating to 1400 BC, plus some hints from the reports of Spanish explorers, their recipe includes honey; chili pepper; vanilla; and annatto, a reddish spice derived from the achiote tree,
Bixa orellana,
which is also used as a natural food coloring for cheese and other processed foods. The beer is earthy and spicy with just a hint of chocolate.