Gin Cocktail with Cranberry Jam - How Fresh Cranberries became My Favorite Ingredient

Every year, when the calendar page turns to the month of November, I am struck with a sense of ambivalence. On one hand, I am sad that the year’s hustle to catch ingredients at their peak is coming to an end, but on the other, I’m happy for the very same reason.
 

Since spring, countless hours have been spent picking, processing and putting up the season’s bounty. Come November, the shelves are full of pickles, jams, sauces, chutneys and liqueurs, and now I’m excited for the part of the year where opening one of these jars transports me back in time to the day the ingredient was collected. There is, however, one thing left to be added to the pantry: cranberries. And the day I go to pick cranberries marks a bittersweet end to the year’s harvesting calendar.

Coincidentally, the spot where I pick my cranberries is the same place in the Pine Barrens where I harvest wild blueberries in July. As I drive down Route 206, I am surrounded by cedar swamps on one side and dense pine forest on the other. My eyes are peeled for a narrow break in the guardrail on the side the road, though I somehow manage to miss it every time. After I make my U-turn, I make a right down the dirt road, where I continue for a mile or so to the side of an abandoned bog. It’s not uncommon to find these in the Pines, as the number of cranberry farmers continues to wane in the state. While New Jersey led the nation in cranberry production in the early 1900s, we are now ranked third after Washington and Massachusetts.

As I pick the berries off the ground, I look around and take pause at how much the landscape has changed since July. The green underbrush is now browned, blueberry bushes have crispy, dehydrated berries hanging from their branches, and the swarms of bugs have (luckily) faded away for the year. I smile, thinking of the time my wife, Katie, and I drove separately here and got not one but both of our cars stuck and had to be towed out by a friend. This spot, though relatively unremarkable, is special to us.

After I take my share, I make my way home, plotting how I am going to use the year’s haul. Truth be told, until four years ago, I ate cranberries only from the can, the sliced mold my grandmother put on the Thanksgiving table. I always hated the stuff. But since I discovered fresh cranberries, they’ve become one of my favorite ingredients. They have a mild sweetness that is counterbalanced with a bright acidity and complex tannic structure.

Cranberries are versatile. I’ve used them to make bitters, syrups, vermouth, pickles and a fizzy cranberry-pine soda. This batch I’m going to make into a cranberry jam. The jam is an awesome addition to a gin cocktail, as well as a great replacement for the canned cranberry sauce imposter. My suggestion would be to bring it to Thanksgiving dinner and serve it both ways. Your family won’t be disappointed.

Danny Childs is a mixologist at The Farm and Fisherman Tavern in Cherry Hill. @slowdrinks