eau–de–vie

ever since living in southern france, and learning to make our own liqueurs from our neighbor jean-luc, my husband and son have been concocting their own home made digestifs. their bittering agent of choice is gentian root. so when my friend christine, at twin cities flower exchange,  showed me her dried gentian flowers i squealed with delight. i had no idea what gentian flower looked like. it’s an alpine flower, found in the swiss and french alps, and the monks used its bitter root liberally in their various elixers over the centuries. are you familiar with gentian? i’m glad to know it grows here (though not native) because my son and husband have been wanting to make an amaro with only botanicals grown on our 3 acres. i don’t know if they plan to stick to native plants only, but it is nice to have gentian in our pocket in case we need it.

dried great yellow gentian (Gentiana lutea)