Grazing: Gooseberries, Meet White Whiskey

A pile of them had been hanging out on our desks for a week or more, tiny pleated husks filled with … fruit? I wasn’t sure. Alice told me these were gooseberries grown by her mother; I was a gooseberry virgin. I peeled the papery husk away and bit the sunshine-colored fruit: It was gently sweet but with tart and apricoty undertones. The flavor was hard to describe, but I thought immediately of turning it into some kind of drink.

The quickest way to imbibe cape gooseberries (also known as Peruvian ground cherries) would be to make a simple syrup, which I did with the fistful I took home from the office. Serendipity had also recently delivered a bottle of Vermont’s first white whiskey —  an unaged whiskey straight from the still, sans barrel aging — made by Vermont Spirits in Quechee. It’s called Black Snake, it’s distilled from Vermont corn, and it’s clear, roundand warming — almost as if it has an invisible vein of cinnamon — and slightly sweet. Imagine a softer blanco tequila, a much more flavorful vodka, a spirit whose flavor is as unusual as gooseberries and whose versatility is kind of thrilling.

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