Mad for maple

from page 76

MA-GRONI

If you like the complex, sweet, tart and vegetal flavours of beets, you’ll love this fun spring Negroni variation that uses a homemade maple-beet shrub in place of a bitter red aperitivo. Deeper grades of maple syrup (Amber to Very Dark) deliver more robust, pleasantly bitter flavours. We tested the recipe using Dark from Giizhigat Maple Products (giizhigatmapleproducts.ca), a First Nation company on St. Joseph Island in Northern Ontario, which has a beautiful minerally flavour in its syrup.

2 oz Maple-Beet Shrub (recipe follows) 2 oz gin

2 oz sweet red vermouth

Maple-glazed (recipe next page) or fresh orange wheels, for garnish

1 Chill two rocks glasses. Add maple-beet shrub, gin and vermouth to a mixing glass or pint glass half-full of ice. Stir for at least 1 minute, or until mixture is thoroughly chilled and flavours are well-integrated (sample with a clean tasting spoon), with no single ingredient dominating the mix.

2 Put a large ice cube in each glass and pour half of the mixture into each. Garnish with fresh or maple-glazed orange wheels and serve.

Makes 2 drinks