Rumtopf, or Boozy Fruit

[talon]

Most of y'all are aware I grew up in Germany, so it's no surprise when I relate bits and pieces of what I did and still do because of it.

Rumtopf is just one more such thing - fruits preserved in booze.

Starting with the first early strawberries, we would put fresh picked, perfectly ripe fruit into crocks and top them with rum. The fruit wants to float, so we'd weight it down with a lid - a thin unglazed ceramic round with a hefty heavy handle that was so imbued with booze that it emitted the odor all year round. As we harvested various fruits, some would find its way into the rum pots (which is what "rumtopf" translates to): cherries, peaches, plums, gooseberries, currants, apricots, blackberries, raspberries, apples, pears, grapes, pomegranates, oranges, lemons, cantaloupe, kumquats, and any other fruit we could get. My Oma loved adding herbs and spices to the pot, too, so we'd toss in bunches of chamomile, mint, tarragon, sage, thyme, savory, caraway seed, and rosemary along with whole cloves, nutmeg chunks, and sticks of cinnamon. Sometimes, she'd have us fill one pot with just one type of fruit, but mostly, they were hodge-podges of fruits, sugar, and rum.

I still make rumtopf, but on a much, much smaller scale, using Mason jars instead of huge, multi-gallon sized crocks.

Plums with brandy, chamomile, a vanilla bean, cinnamon, and cloves. Apricots with frangelica, thyme, cardamom, and white pepper. Raspberries with kirschwasser, mint, and cloves. Pomegranates in vermouth with orange zest, cacao nibs, and tarragon. Clementines in vodka with vanilla bean, pineapple mint, and basil. Grapes in brandy with cloves, vanilla bean, and rose geranium leaves.

And so many, many more. Blueberries with gin, lemon zest, and lemon verbena.

Placed in bowls with cocktail picks, they are tiny, edible cocktails all on their own.

They also star as a topping for pound cake, ice cream, cheesecake, and angelfood cake.

Pureed and frozen, they make a great sorbet.

They make great little fruit tarts, glistening in their booze on top of a frangipane filling.

Thicken the liqueur with powdered sugar and spoon over any kind of cake.

Chop the fruit and use in place of candied fruits in fruitcake to get a good head start on making it boozy.

Spoon some boozy fruit into a cloud of firmly whipped cream.

Fill cream puffs with a bit of cream and boozy fruit.

Spoon some fruit into a champagne flute and fill with champagne or sparkling mead.

Use boozy fruit in little trifles or layered with pudding.

Bake the boozy fruit into muffins or cupcakes.

Warm the fruit up and use to glaze roasts, chickens, duck, pork, quail, venison, or buffalo, ostrich, or any other meat.

Fill crepes with boozy fruits.

Mix boozy fruit with the fruit filling for pies and cobblers.

Coarse chop the fruit and stir into yogurt.

Chop the boozy fruit into a pilaf or stir fry or couscous or tagine.

Serve the boozy fruit with cheese and crackers.

Make a boozy fruit smoothie.

Play around with it - it doesn't take much fruit or booze to experiment with if you use those small half pint wide mouth jars. A cup of fruit, a large spoon of sugar, and a sample sized bottle of booze. That's all you need to get started.

It takes 3 - 9 weeks for the fruit to fully absorb the booze, but the wait will be worth it.