Tea Leaves

This weekend I went to heaven. It turns out that in heaven there are lots of blueberry bushes.

Heaven is just north of Ligonier, at The Berry Patch, a pick-your-own blueberry farm. The same week that Whole Foods raised their prices to $4/pint for berries shipped halfway around the country, I was picking fresh berries off the shrub for $2.50 a quart. I have a few quarts now. Quite a few.

The atmosphere at The Berry Patch was relaxed and friendly. The current owners have been operating the farm for 3 years. The berry shrubs are lined up in rows, with a small colored flag indicating which variety (Blueray, Berkley, Herbert, Jersey, Early Blue, Bluetta or Colville) is in a given row. I started off trying to keep my varietals segregated, but after a while just began throwing everything into the same bucket with abandon. Based on my tastings off the vine, I liked the Berkleys the best, so that’s the lion’s share of what I got.

The best side effect of having so many blueberries is that I can do this:

Blueberry Daiquiri

Put a cup and a half of blueberries, a shotglass of Cointreau, two shotglasses of decent rum, and some ice in a blender. Blend until it is slush. Pour in a glass and serve to your friends. In about 15 minutes, you should find it pretty easy to take advantage of them.

This drink is remarkably similar to the fig daiquiri I pushed on you earlier in the season, but I’ve learned from experience. The fig daiquiri ended up tasting a little too strongly of lemon, so I eliminated the citrus entirely, substituting Cointreau instead. Blueberries are already tart enough to not need the lemon juice, anyway. This substitution has two effects. First, it makes it taste better. Second, it increases the Booze Quotient even more, turning what is already a powerful drink into a sort of eternally powerful alcohol delivery system.

Some people might say “What’s the point of making a hugely powerful drink with lots of fresh fruit?” To those people, I simply have to say that I’m not shome kinda thingmabobby wittha linoleum lawnmower shugrit vashhhhhznil afsa 89RU*(QU@#HOIASNFFIJFFzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.