Summer's lease hath all too short a date

Make

The nights are starting to draw in, there's a slight nip in the air in the evening, and even though it's still August, my thoughts are starting to turn to the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness: prime foraging time! We went out for our first prospecting trip around the Cotswold lanes a few days ago, and were surprised to find that there were already blackberries, lusciously dark and ripe for picking. This bowl of gleaming beauty was the result, the first three of many pounds we'll pick over the next month or so. There are plenty more, still pink or green and clinging tightly to the brambles, which makes me hopeful that we'll find a good crop this year.

Last year we picked about 14lb in total, of which about eight were turned into gloriously sticky, darkest purple jam, some for keeping, and some to go into the hampers I gave as part of my home-made Christmas. I've been husbanding my stocks carefully, and still have four jars stashed away in the pantry, which should last until this year's is ready. Some of the blackberries we ate in crumbles, added to flapjacks or made into compote for porridge; but quite the best, and most popular thing, we did with them was to make blackberry vodka. So simple, but so delicious, and very, very deceptive. The recipe is easy - vodka, sugar and blackberries, muddled in a large, sterilised jar, shaken regularly for a few weeks, then strained off, bottled and left to mature. The intensity of the colour is dramatic, and makes it a very attractive gift - if you can bear to give it away! Be warned, it goes down smoothly, and it's very easy to overdo it... I think a greater proportion of this year's harvest will end up being used this way.

Last year we also managed to find some beautiful cobnuts, some of which I used in baking; some were eaten, freshly harvested, when they were still sweet and milky; and some were hardened off on the windowsill and kept to eat later. We still have a handful left, in the bowl in the photo. Adjacent to the nut tree we were lucky enough to find some sloes, small but juicy, and made sloe gin, which is still maturing. Later in the season, we found an abundant crop of much fatter sloes, but having run out of jars in which to make more sloe gin, I've kept them in the freezer, ready to make another batch. The thought of the time it takes to prick them all with a needle to release their juicy goodness is a bit daunting, but the end result is worth it.

I'm hoping that the change in the weather, with more rain, will mean that the berries get plumper and juicier in the next couple of weeks; but regardless, I'll have purple hands and prickles in my fingers until the end of September.