Brandy Blackcurrents. - YES!

Just a quick note to keep the blog ticking over.
I don't know about anyone else, but I love fruity flavored alcohol. Juniper draws me to gin, grapes draw me to grappa and don't get me started on calvados, wine, cyder, scrumpy or perry. What I really want to talk about are those home made concoctions that appear in all their might at this time of year. In my particular area of rural Dorset it's all about sloe gin, and every household has its own mix, vintage and method. In my household, we've just strained off the cassis, which is a black current flavoured brandy, famously combined with champagne to make the apperitiv, kier royale.
There's just something about those acidic fruits that marries so well with booze. It's not a British thing either. I spent a very happy dolce course in a vineyard in Tuscany quaffing cherry flavored grappa. These beverage gems are universal, crossing the globe as well as situations. Where would you be on a cold, rain soaked shoot without a warming tipple of sloe gin in your hip flask, but equally what else is better than a Kier Royale or a Sloe Fizz on a warm summers evening or cozied up to a woodburnr in midwinter?
But I diverge from my point. I come to you today with a plea.
Now we've strained this liqueur off, we have delicious cassis, and punchy black currents filled with brandy. As a child of wide spread media hysteria about wastage, excess, and shortages, I am arguing for the salvation of those fruit you use to flavour your delicious bottles of forty percent proof. Yes, the liquid is brilliant, but so too is the fruit you strain off, with perhaps the exception of the sloe. Don't compost these little beauties and certainly don't throw them away! Once strained you have in your hands one of the simplist puddings you can get. To give you a recipe would be to patronize you, dear reader, so I will just say this;
They're great with yoghurt, ice cream, crushed biscuits, in smoothies, trifles, on top of warm brownies with cream cheese, with porridge, as a garnish and possibly even in salads. Chutneys, sauces, ice creams, froghurts, coulis.... The list is extensive if not endless.

To illustrate my point I'll leave this post by returning to that Italian vineyard.
Picture a long table outside, filled with loud singing italians and befuddled english speakers. We'd just finished the year's harvest and having had a gargantuan first four courses, washed down with plenty of the vino, are feeling content and merry. Then a quiet descends on the group, as a man stands up, walks to a nearby shed and withdraws from it two preserving jars. The man is clearly aged, with a shock of light grey hair and a pot belly, but emanates toughness in his deportment and mien. Eyes follow his steady hands as the jars are cracked open and from them are spooned cherries into plastic cups, which are passed around the table. These little juice bombs have been sitting in firewater grappa for at least a year and are probably strong enough to go three rounds with Mike Tyson. As each one is punctured, it explodes, releasing all the power of the Mother Nature onto the taste buds. The table erupts back into conversation, loud, crude songs and other such jollity.
These little cherries will be with me as long as I live and are an example of the emphasis I found placed on food and friendship in Italy.
So don't throw away those pokey strained fruits, marvel in them and celebrate them. I will now return to my black currents, with creme fraiche and crumbled biscuit.