Every spring morning, I walk into my backyard, take a deep inhale, and wish I could bottle that smell. This year, I did it. With an all-natural aperitif.
The artichokes put a herby bitterness into the air, the verbena adds citrus, the bay notes of grass and menthol. It is a delicious, fleeting smell, so present in the air that it feels like something I could eat or drink.
I am certain the ancients understood the power of scent. In the Bible, the holy is bound up in aroma, like breath is bound to life. How many passages are devoted to incense, how many to fragrance. In Leviticus, the Bible speaks of a scent that is “soothing to the Lord.” Think about that: not much else in the entire book seems to calm her. I’d like to believe my backyard on a spring morning would.
Thanks to some intensive Googling and trial and error, I figured out how to turn what I smell into a bittersweet aperitif, like Aperol, Campari, or Cynar, but wholly natural and as local as my garden.
The Italians, it turns out, have been making a liqueur from bay leaves for centuries, Liquore Alloro. Think limoncello but green, bright green because they use the first flush of almost lime-colored leaves.
And making bitters to balance out the sweetness is as easy as making tea: just replace hot water with cold grain alcohol and steep away.
After making my sweet liquor and the bitters, I blended the two to taste, poured it over ice, added some seltzer, and took a long, deep swallow of spring.
Backyard Bittersweet Aperitif
Ingredients
Artichoke Bitters
- 5 older artichoke leaves
- 5 Meyer lemons
- 1 gallon high-proof vodka (or Everclear grain alchohol)
Bay Leaf And Verbena Liqueur
- 40 fresh bay leaves
- 1 cup fresh lemon verbena leaves
- 2 cups vodka or high-prook grain alcohol
- 3 cups water
- 3 cups sugar
Bittersweet Backyard Aperitif
- artichoke bitters
- bay leaf and verbena liqueur
- seltzer
- ice
- blood orange wedges garnish
Instructions
Artichoke Bitters
- Rinse the artichoke leaves and peel the lemons. Place the leaves and peel in a gallon jar, add vodka or Everclear. Make sure the ingredients are submerged, screw on the lid, and let steep for three weeks or more. Strain into smaller bottles, squeezing liquid out of the leaves.
Bay Leaf And Verbena Liqueur
- Wash bay and verbena. Add to one one-gallon jar, pour in vodka. Shake and close the lid. Let it sit for one to two months. Strain. Boil the sugar and water to dissolve the sugar. Let cool. Add to vodka mix. (You can serve this as a sweet after-dinner liqueur very well chilled in shot glasses, or use it to make a bittersweet Backyard Aperitif.)
Bittersweet Backyard Aperitif
- To make a bittersweet aperitif, combine 2/3 bitters with 1/3 sweet liqueur. Taste and add more of either as desired. Serve over ice with a wedge of Meyer lemon or blood orange, and a splash of soda.
