May has been a long and winding month. As always happens when everything blooms at once, I ran out of time to do all of the things and, moreover, to write about all of the things. I’m feeling very behind (that may just be Mercury retrograde talking). I did manage to carve out some time for violets, my absolute favorite early spring edible. I’ve been working with violets for two years now – I’ve written in the past about my violet syrup experiments (which were relatively successful) and I also made a violet cordial, violet drinking vinegar, and violet sugar cookies (which were less successful – not inedible but not really what I wanted.)
As fate would have it, my perfect violet picking day was May Day proper. I had a number of helpers – friends who were all helping to collect dandelions for our May Day feast and a little bit extra (violets for me). My friends have all willingly signed up on my journey to eat all of the edible flowers so the promise of future violet edibles was all the encouragement they needed. With extra hands, picking enough to make violet syrup and then some was easy and so I set out to make violet jelly as well.
Both the violet jelly (featured here in the front) and the violet syrup (back pouring bottle) have been a smashing success. Violet jelly is what I have been missing in my life – the flavor is so deep and purple. (I know, descriptive, right?) The jelly has been great with a charcuterie plate (really good on salted meats and cheeses) and it makes a pretty great addition to a cheese danish, too! Truth be told, I like it BETTER than the violet syrup which I have found to be a bit finicky.
If you’ve been following along for a while, you’ll know that I have a serious thing for cocktail syrups. My go-to is to make them into a gin sour with a good solid juniper-forward gin and some freshly squeezed lemon juice. That is one of my staple cocktails so I know my recipe isn’t the problem but honestly, I haven’t particularly liked the violet syrup in that application. A lot of my others have so I’ve kept making the cocktail but up until last week, I wouldn’t have skipped the cocktail syrup for that jelly any day.
That all changed in a moment. I was staying at a hotel on the beach in Cape Cod with my partner, my coven mate, and her partner. We didn’t know what to make for a drink – it was hot. We knew that a tiki drink was in order. But what?
We surveyed our assets: aged rum with pineapple and lime juice sounds like a tiki drink, right? My partner used some Google magic and came up with an absolutely perfect summer cocktail. It called for aged rum, those two juices, Aperol (which I had thrown in our bags on a complete lark), and simple syrup. We happened to have our violet syrup so in it went.
Meet the Violet Bird of Paradise
The bird of paradise is already a riff on the more classic Jungle Bird cocktail and we put our own twist on the drink by using violet simple syrup rather than plain cocktail syrup. The results were spectacular. The violet flavor grounded this drink (as I mentioned before, violet has a surprising amount of depth of flavor for such a tiny flower) and the color-changing properties of the syrup were on full display when combined with the citrus elements of the drink. This is the perfect cool you down on a hot day kind of drink.
The Violet Bird of Paradise
1 oz. overproof rum (I used aged rum for this purpose
1 oz. Aperol
1 oz. Pineapple Juice
1/2 oz. Fresh Lime Juice
1/4 oz. Violet Simply Syrup
Mix in a Boston shaker and then serve over crushed ice.
This drink is sweet and needs to be served very cold – don’t skimp on the ice. Fill the entire glass. With rum, pineapple, the orange from Aperol, and sweet violet – this drink can be easily enchanted for good times and happiness. Please drink and enchant responsibly!
Minx