How To Give Your Christmas Tree A Second Life As A Cocktail
As the holiday season draws closer, many of us will adorn our living rooms with freshly cut conifers. A brightly lit fir, pine, or spruce can transform any space into a comfort-filled, festive haven for enjoying the holidays. Yet, once Christmas has come and gone, most of us are guilty of dragging that once beautiful tree to the curb to begin yet another year with a clean slate. If you're tired of treating your Christmas tree like a single-use consumable every year, surprisingly, you can utilize parts to make some of the best cocktails for the holiday season.
While infusing your next gin and tonic with a bit of your previously adorned Fraser fir may seem like a new concept, Native American tribes have been utilizing various parts of fir, pine, and spruce trees to craft healing drinks, foods, and even chewing gum for hundreds of years. The best part about infusing your favorite cocktails with a bit of your Christmas tree is the complex flavors these special plants impart. Pine trees have the most subtle flavor, yet spruce trees have a woody, perfume-like taste, leaving fir trees to imbue a more pronounced, distinct bite to your favorite drinks. Before we unveil some essential tips to keep in your back pocket when utilizing conifer trees for consumption, let's take a look at some specific ways you can craft uniquely flavored cocktails with a sprig or two of your beloved Christmas tree.
How to reuse parts of your Christmas tree to make tasty holiday spirits
There are many different ways to add a bit of that aromatic Christmas tree to your next festive cocktail. While you can always garnish your next martini or gin and tonic with a fresh sprig of your tree for a subtle hint of flavor and visually appealing flair, for a deeper, more pronounced flavor, you may want to make an infusion or cordial. Gin is a liquor infused with juniper berries and other botanicals, which gives this spirit its signature taste. To employ the flavor compounds of your particular conifer of choice, infuse a small amount of gin or vermouth with your tree's needles in addition to added heat from a saucepan, some water, and a trusty food-grade thermometer.
If you want to have a more well-rounded syrup of sorts to add to an entire array of different drinks, a conifer-infused cordial is your best bet. A cordial is categorized as a distilled, aromatic, and sweet syrup-like concoction that can flavor any basic beverage. Just as citrusy elderflower cordial is made with boiled water, sugar, citrus, and elderflowers, alternatively, Christmas tree cordial can be made by using fir or spruce branches and needles. You can use this zingy tonic to craft many unique cocktails that provide just the right amount of festive cheer. Yet before you forge ahead to make tree-infused cocktails, there are a few crucial factors to keep in mind.
Some conifers aren't safe for consumption
Before making your new and improved spruced-up cocktail, you need to make sure, first and foremost, that you're using a tree that's been given the green light for consumption. While fir, spruce, and pine trees are perfectly safe to transform into your next flavored cordial, yew trees are categorized as unsafe regarding edible uses. Cypress and cedar trees should also be avoided as these varieties tend to cause allergic reactions.
Once you've determined that your Christmas tree is safe to eat and drink, you want to ensure the branches and needles haven't been sprayed with toxic, pesticide-reducing chemicals. Buying your tree from a local, trusted farm is your best bet; however, if you're still unsure, soak the branches in room temperature water and rinse thoroughly before using. On the topic of soaking, you also want to ensure that you're using fresh branches and needles when making your new and improved holiday drinks. Dried branches and needles won't impart as much flavor, especially when creating an infusion that requires a considerable amount of needles. If you're still reluctant to try using bits of your beloved Christmas tree in your favorite cocktails, start small and see what a simple fir or spruce addition can do to a wide array of different holiday refreshments.