Balsam Baby cocktail

This a festive red cocktail with the bright taste of a balsam forest and a sweet hint of citrus.

As I was developing this cocktail, the song Santa Baby was running through my head. All I could think, was “Balsam Baby, and hurry down the chimney tonight!…..” to the same tune. So of course, that became its name, for better or worse.

This is a tasty beverage to have on a sparkly holiday evening. Whether it’s the snow sparkling, the Christmas tree lights, or the starry night sky, this cocktail will help set the holiday mood.

We are continuing our blog series, Winter Spice and Everything Nice, with what is commonly known as The Queen of Spices, Cardamom. I hope you will come along on this exploration of the world of spices with me!


Cardamom, The Queen of Spices

Cardamom is a well known spice that can be found in most grocery stores. In the regions of India, where Cardamom is native, it is consider the "Queen of Spices," due to its medicinal and culinary virtues. It is warming, pungent, and sweet with hints of citrus and ginger. It is an important ingredient in tea, in India and coffee, in the middle east. It is used in both savory meals and baked treats. The seeds can be chewed as a sweet breath freshener after eating a garlic filled meal.

Quality

It is most often found in stores as a powder. In specialty stores, you can find them as green/tan seed pods containing small seeds, with color ranging from light brown to grey to black, and the whole seeds without the pods, which tend to be dark grey in color.

The seed pods, themselves, do not have much flavor, but they protect the seeds from losing their volatile flavor. This is the best way to purchase cardamom, to retain the flavor. Keep the seeds in the pods until you are ready to use them.

Clove got its name from the Latin word clavus, which means “nail-shaped”, referring to the shape of the clove bud.

This common spice is a dried flower bud from a tropical evergreen tree. The clove tree leaves and bark are also very aromatic.

It is native to the Molucca Islands, also known as the Spice Islands, an archipelago in Indonesia. The tradition there is to plant a clove tree every time someone is born. This inevitably has led to an abundance of clove trees on these islands.

Clove is one of the earliest spices that was traded out of its region. It has even been found, stored in ceramic vessels dating back to 1721 BCE, in Syria.

Cloves have been used in South East Asia for thousands of years and regarded as a panacea for many ills. In China, in 226 BCE, during the Han Dynasty, it was written, that in order for people to speak to the emperor, they first had to chew a clove to freshen their breath.

Historically clove was highly valued as a medicinal remedy in India. It was (and still is) a popular spice added to food for flavor and to aid digestion. It was also used in love potions. Today, cloves are known to be both digestive and aphrodisiac.

Historically, the Roman and Greek used cloves for medicine and to spice and preserve food. Cloves were imported into Alexandria, as early as, AD 176.

Cloves were introduced to Europe in the 4th century by Arabian spice traders, via Alexandria. They were worth their weight in gold, at this point, due to the distance the cloves traveled, as well as, their importance in food preservation and medicine. Spices, like clove and cinnamon, were considered valuable to excepted as currency, in Europe.

We are continuing our series on Winter Spice and Everything Nice, with Ginger! Ginger is found in pumpkin spice blends and chai blends. It is so much more than a spice to flavor food and beverages. It is also a wonderful medicinal root (rhizome actually).

Let’s dive in!

Ginger’s botanical name is Zingiber officinale, of the Zingiberaceae family. Turmeric, galangal, and cardamom are in the same family.

It is a perennial tropical plant that is native to Asia. It could be originally from India and/or China. The exact origins of ginger are not confirmed. Ginger no longer grows wild, making its native lands difficult to determine.

It is now cultivated throughout tropic regions and in greenhouses and high tunnels elsewhere, even in Maine! The rhizome is usually harvested after 10 months of growth.

Ginger was used in SE Asia for cooking and medicine for over 5000 years. It is a classic warming spice found in both Indian and Chinese cooking historically and today.

The warming nature of ginger promotes circulation of the blood, the aromatic properties of ginger ease digestive complaints and pain, and the pungent intensity of ginger supports immunity.