How to make épine

As you may know I am a bit of an infusion enthusiast. The process could not be simple or quicker - just stick some spice / leaf / fruit in alcohol with a bit of sugar, leave it a few days / weeks / months, filter out the bits and bottle. The results are always interesting, often excellent and it's fun to experiment.

The leaves of some trees are considered to be edible by a few wild food enthusiasts though I have always had my doubts about them. As an inveterate hedgerow nibbler I have tried most of those that won't actually poison me and found little to inspire. The only ones I find acceptable are the newly opened leaves of the common lime. These have a mild lettuce flavour and a pleasant mucilaginous quality when chewed.

Apart from beech leaf noyau I never tried a tree-leaf infusion until last year when I was delighted to receive a bottle of homemade épine apéritif from my friend Sarah. It is a little different from my normal infusions as it also contains wine (lots of it) but is still easy to make. Sarah discovered this drink during a long sojourn in France and she gave me not just a bottle of the stuff but the recipe too.

Blackthorn, that prickly denizen of hedgerows from Penzance to Peterhead, is famous for occupying the time of foragers and homebrewers in the making of sloe gin, so it came as a surprise to me to hear that blackthorn leaves make a drink which is every bit as good. While my ignorance in this might seem odd to some, I found it equally odd to discover that Sarah's French friends had never heard of sloe gin and leave the sloes on the tree to rot.

Sloes provide the acid component of sloe gin but in épine this comes from the wine. What the blackthorn leaves give to the drink is the almond flavour that you find in sloe gin, especially if you leave the sloes in for a good long time so that the almondy essences in the kernels are absorbed. The finished drink is an extraordinary treat – fruity and rich and very strong.

Blackthorn leaves have been out here in Dorset for a couple of weeks but have only now become formed, so mid-April to early summer is best for picking. Either Sarah drinks a lot or she thinks I do because she gave me a recipe which makes 18 litres. Here it is, tailored around a half a bottle of brandy. In France they use red wine but a blackberry or elderberry is more appropriate for us homebrewers.

Épine apéritif

2½ litres of red wine or homemade red fruit wine such as blackberry or elderberry
Half a bottle of brandy or eau-de-vie
500g sugar
About half a litre of blackthorn leaves (don't use more leaves than I recommend because blackthorn, like all the plum species, produce traces of cyanide as a byproduct of the almond flavour it imparts)

Put all the ingredients into a food quality plastic container, stir and fit the lid tightly. Leave for two weeks, stirring occasionally. Transfer to clean bottles using a funnel and some doubled-up muslin cloth to filter out the bits. As with nearly all drinks it improves with age. Santé!

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