Height of Summer
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| Comice ripening at EZ Orchards |
It is hot out. In the valley, the pears are getting good and ripe, yellow jackets circling the down fruit in the field. Wheat is being cut, sunflowers abound, 3 digit days. The vineyards are lush in the Eola Hills, but grapes still green and hard. We’ve bottled the last of the Bartlett until the new crop is in, and we’re between whiskey barrels. We took a drive through Carlton, Yamhill, Independence, Monmouth to a wonderful wedding on a bend of the Willamette. It was our anniversary too. Camping in the floodway, lanterns at dusk, hard to imagine a spring freshet that would inundate the meadow and trees.
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| Wedding band on break |
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| chain harrow behind the shed |
Back in Portland, Erika is at a farmers market and I must develop a cocktail for the tasting room. Last week we served an Apricot-Plum Smash. Today a coffee drink (TBD) to keep the heart racing.
Apricot Plum Smash
Ingredients:
- 2 ripe plums, cut up (they don’t need to be from our tree)
- 1 1/2 oz apricot Liqueur
- 1 oz unoaked rye whiskey
- one good shake Angostura Bitters
- Ginger beer to top the glass
And how you do it:
- Mash the plums at the bottom of a cocktail shaker with a muddler
- Add spirits, bitters, and ice
- Shake hard
- Strain into a glass with ice because it’s pretty pulpy, but the ice is welcome on a hot day
- Top with ginger beer and a lemon twist
