Gin inspired pickles

The excessive consumption of gin is sometimes referred to as "getting pickled." This despite the fact that you're not literally "pickling" your brain. But could you possibly pick a gin to pickle actual pickles? More than a tongue twister, it's now a reality: Hendrick's Gin and New York's Katz's Delicatessen have teamed up to create gin-inspired pickled cucumbers.What a lovely idea i thought, uniting gin lovers and pickle aficionados. Yielding a new world in which pickles can taste like gin and gin can taste like pickles. The results are being billed as a "first-of-its-kind" gin half-sour pickle. They're non-alcoholic, and no actual gin is used to produce them; instead, the flavor profile is created with the help of Hendrick's botanicals – including whole juniper berries and cubeb berries – which are used as part of a 72-hour-long two-step brining process.

Lets start at the beginning. All gins contain juniper. Hendrick's unique taste however comes from its use of roses and cucumbers along with 11 other botanicals, of course including juniper - but also coriander, orange, lemon, angelic, orris root, cubeb berries, caraway seeds, chamomile, elderflower, and yarrow berries .Obviously Hendricks protect their recipe and therefore it is not readily avialable,but I analized the ingredients that compose Hendricks "botanicals" and came up with a gin inspired but no gin pickle for cucumbers. I was guided by my palate as a serious Hendricks imbiber and made substitutions where necessary and where certain spices were unsourceable.For instance my substitution for cubeb berries was timut peppercorns.Other spices I introduced were allspice berries, rose peppercorns fennel pollen and star anise.

Gin inspired cucumber pickles

Start by preparing the cucumbers.Trim the blossom ends from the cucumbers (opposite of stem end) because they contain enzymes that encourage spoilage. Working vertically down the cucumber spear repeatedly with the tynes of a small fork, spear the cucumber all over.

Use filtered bottled water that does not contain chlorine.

You will need

1 kilner jar

8 small persian cucumbers 

1 tangerine, zest and juice

1 lime, zest and juice

125 ml white wine vinegar

125 ml bottled water

12-15 juniper berries, crushed

tsp allspice berries crushed

tsp dried rose petals 

tsp coriander seeds crushed

1/2 tsp fennel pollen

1/4 tsp star anise, crushed

Put all the dry ingredients and spices in your kilner jar,add the liquid ingredients followed finally by the cucumbers.Seal the jar and leave for at least 72 hours.Add the cucumbers to your Hendricks and tonic or use as an accompaniment for some charcuterie or do as Katz do and add it to a pastrami on Rye.