Flaming July

Mother's Ruin HQ is basking in a week of heat and longed for sunshine. Deep from within the raspberry canes her warm timbers creak and settle as the soft fruit bushes ripen around her. 

Intensive picking activity is interspersed with eating cherries and strawberries sun-warmed and sweet, and straight from the plant.

Is there anything more dreamily seductive than an English summer day? - perhaps because there are so few of them

This week both the gooseberries and the blackcurrants are ready for picking. The fridge and freezer are now filling up and the berries await their glorious death in vodka.

The gooseberry show season is about to start, with the first on 27th July at the Crown Inn at Goostrey, Cheshire, followed shortly by the Queen of all gooseberry shows at Egton Bridge on 6th of August. One of the last remaining strongholds of gooseberry stardom where the noble and ancient art of growing gooseberries the size of eggs is celebrated.

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To toast those heroes of the fruit world a gooseberry cocktail...

La Grosella
(Spanish for gooseberry)

Ingredients per person
Muddle/crush six gooseberries, then added a 1/2 oz. of lime juice, 1/2 oz. of simple syrup, 1/2 oz. of St Germain (elderflower liqueur) and a 2 oz. of mezcal or tequila. Shake, strain and serve in a coupe, garnished with a lime wheel and a spare gooseberry. Yum!