Wild Spice Holiday Extract

What happens when you take all the flavors of the holidays and infuse them with alcohol? An amazing, delicious extract for recipes and holiday cocktails to welcome in the season!

I love cranberries for Christmas. And vanilla anytime! I always have to take a whiff of orange essence before I break open an orange for a snack. All these aromas and flavors blend so well to create an extract perfect for Christmas gatherings.

The best part about this extract is that it blends regular kitchen herbs with something wild, so anybody can create a unique blend for themselves. Sumac, one of the most recognized wild herbs, is so flavorful and creates a beautiful color in the alcohol. And of course, cinnamon and clove are perfect for adding a little Christmas cheer!

The key to good extracts is time. A good extract will take up to a year to age. A really good extract will take two years. An excellent extract will take, well.. you get the idea. Depending on the alcohol you choose, the flavors may need to age more than others. I prefer a bourbon or brandy extract, but some prefer the cleaner taste of vodka. Rum would be a good choice as well.

The choice of ingredients here can be varied. If you are not familiar with wild foraged ingredients, you can purchase most of these ingredients through a tea or herb shop. Sumac is used to create Za’atar, a mediterranean seasoning, and is easy to find in most spice shops. Rose hips and spicebush berries are often used in teas and seasonings and should be available from local or online suppliers. You can find great culinary and medicinal herbs here .

Recipe for Wild Spice Holiday Extract

3-4 organic oranges of any variety
2-3 vanilla beans any variety
1/2 cup fresh cranberries
2-3 four-inch Ceylon cinnamon sticks
20 cloves
1 large sumac stag
2 Tbls spicebush berries
1 Tbls rose hips
1-pint 100p vodka or bourbon, depending on your tastes
1/2 cup honey (used later)

Tools needed: Jar, sharp knife, zester

I use organic clementines for this recipe. We’re going to use the peel since the white pith can be bitter. Wash the fruit and let them soak in vinegar water for just a few minutes. Pat dry. If you have a zester, it’ll be easier to get the orange zest separated from the white pith. I couldn’t find my zester, so I just used a sharp paring knife to thinly peel away the zest.

Split the vanilla beans. I had long beans so I cut them in half, to fit under the alcohol.

Vanilla beans have much more flavor when they are split. The tiny beans inside can be scraped out to use in baked recipes and other dishes. But in this case, we’ll just use the entire bean. Don’t forget, the beans still have flavor after extracting here. More on that later.

With a fork, remove sumac berries from the stag, gently ‘combing’ them off the stems.

Staghorn Sumac is one of my favorite herbs to cook with. The flavor is citrus/tart and lemony.

Pierce the cranberries with a fork and add to the jar. Add the remainder of the ingredients to the jar and pour alcohol over it, filling the jar and covering the ingredients.

Store the jar in a cool, dry, dark place and allow it to age, shaking once in a while. After several months, the liquid can be strained into another jar and the vanilla beans, cinnamon and cloves can be put back into the alcohol to continue to age. Personally, I like the flavor and will let these ingredients continue until the extract is complete.

After a year, or your desired time frame, strain the liquid into another jar. Add honey and blend well.

I love to use this extract as a holiday aperitif! Add a cream liquor and chill. Rim a shot glass with cranberry sugar before pouring into the glass. Enjoy!

Suzanne Shires is the author of Wild Herb Gardening and Beyond the Garden Gate, Wild Food Recipes. She is an herbal ‘granny-mentor’ and shares her herbal knowledge in blogs, articles, groups and posts. She grows herbs on her homestead, Birchwater Farms, and creates herbal concoctions, tea blends, and remedies in her shop. Watch for her granny mentorship program to open in 2023!