I happen to be a little impartial about spring for selfish reasons—my birthday falls on the first day of it. That’s sort of the point of the season, right? Things coming to life; each tree bud and crocus shoot an awakening, as if the world were opening its eyes, giving a big yawn and stretch, and saying, “Hey, what are we going to do today?” The possibilities are open and endless. That’s what spring feels like in the botanical world: one big possibility. Maybe dandelions don’t have to be treated as weeds. Maybe those wild onion shoots don’t need to be mowed over but instead pulled from the ground and given a whole new purpose. And those early, curling fern bits? Oh, there’s a lot you can do with those. True foragers see the spring season through a wide-angle lens that for the rest of us is a mere pinhole. But the great thing about spring? We get the chance to start all over again and discover things we never knew existed. I’m still learning; I hope this chapter encourages you to shake up a little curiosity for what’s around you, too.
No other plant better represents the battle between the human desire for a perfect landscape and complete weedy chaos than the dandelion. Their craggy leaves and long-stemmed golden flowers shoot from the ground in complete defiance of suburban aesthetics, like a plant revolution that will never say die. But the thing about dandelions? They’re delicious! Instead of seeing them as the ultimate insolent maverick, see them as a generous source of side dishes and, for our purposes, cocktail ingredients. You can use the lovely chive flower for this recipe, too.
1½ ounces (45ml) bourbon
1 pickled dandelion or chive flower*
Pour the whiskey into a shot glass. Top with a pickled flower. Shoot the contents.
*Pickled Dandelions or Chive Flowers
1 cup (roughly 100g) dandelion or chive flowers,
gently rinsed and allowed to dry thoroughly
1 quart (approx. 1 liter) white wine vinegar
Add the clean, dry flowers to a quart-sized (1-liter) mason jar. Fill with vinegar. Place in a cool, dark place for 5 to 7 days.
When I was a kid playing in the backyard, I used to like to grab the skinny, green, scallionlike stalks of wild spring onions from the ground and pry them free. Then I cut off the tops, plopped the the onion bulbs into my doll’s supermarket cart, and let them have some real, live produce, not the plastic stuff they came with. That’s still how I feel about these onions—why buy some unknown supermarket source of cocktail garnish when I’ve got fresh, perfectly sized, beautiful, gimlet-ready onions right in my own backyard? Go dig up some onions, and make this easy-peasy cocktail accoutrement.
2½ ounces (75ml) London dry gin
½ ounce (15ml) dry vermouth
1 pickled wild spring onion*
Fill a mixing glass half-full with ice cubes. Pour in the gin and vermouth. Stir for 30 to 45 seconds. Strain into a coupe or cocktail glass, and garnish with a pickled wild spring onion.
*Pickled Wild Spring Onions
6–12 wild onions, washed, leaving just a little green tail
1½ cups (355ml) white wine vinegar
½ cup (120ml) water
1 tablespoon (15g) sugar
1 teaspoon (5g) kosher salt
1 sprig of dill
1 teaspoon (5g) juniper berries
1 teaspoon (5g) black peppercorns
Add the onions (I like to leave a little tail on them), vinegar, water, sugar, and salt to a pot and simmer for about 2 minutes. Allow to cool. Drop the dill, juniper berries, and peppercorns in a 16-ounce (475ml) mason jar and pour in the vinegar solution and onions. Store in the sealed jar in the refrigerator for up to 6 months.
Wild onions © Alamy
Black locust trees in the spring are some of the most beautiful examples of the season—and the most prolific. They’re everywhere in North America and Europe, even if you haven’t noticed them before. This normally humble, craggy-bark tree busts out with tumbling bouquets of blossoms, white-petaled and pinkish at the bottom. The best part: they are edible and both mild and gently sweet. It’s the way things should taste in spring. Like any flower, edible locust blossoms are fleeting, which is why I like embellishing something sparkling with them. There’s an urgency to sparkling wine—the bubbles rising quickly as if they can’t fly to the top fast enough. It’s the ultimate embrace-the-moment embodiment. As to the homemade grenadine: you can use this for lots of things, both alcoholic and not (and in cooking, too). It’s thoroughly worth whipping up a batch. And feel free to nosh on the blossoms after you sip on this.
½ ounce (15ml) homemade grenadine*
½ ounce (15ml) freshly squeezed lemon juice
4 ounces (120ml) sparkling wine (brut-level dryness recommended)
1 black locust blossom, for garnish
Pour the grenadine and lemon juice into a champagne flute. Top with sparkling wine and garnish with a locust blossom.
*Grenadine
¾ cup (150g) sugar
1 cup (235ml) unsweetened pomegranate juice
In a saucepan, combine the sugar and juice over medium heat, stirring until the sugar starts to dissolve. Simmer, stirring, for 5 to 7 minutes. Allow to cool. Store in an airtight jar in the refrigerator for up to a month.
NOTE: Feel free to play around with your grenadine, adding other herbs or fruit to the mix. In the summer, I like throwing in ¼ cup (20g) of chopped rose hips.
Black locust blossoms
This riff on the classic Pink Lady cocktail is easy enough to make pink instead if you prefer—just swap in rose-petal syrup. But I like the way the vibrant purple adds a twist to this tipple. Note that to make the egg whites really frothy, you should first do something called dry shaking. That is, shake the ingredients vigorously without the ice, then add the ice and shake again to chill it down and give the cocktail the requisite amount of dilution.
1 egg white
¾ ounce (22ml) London dry gin
¾ ounce (22ml) freshly squeezed lemon juice
¾ ounce (22ml) apple brandy