A wedding toast: blackberry cordials, pages 152-153

I run with a group of people on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5:30 a.m. One of the people I often run alongside of is Jon Rosen, at least on days that I’m feeling particularly fast and days that Jon is moving slower than usual.

Jon just married, or perhaps we should say eloped, with another runner, Lisa. The two snuck off to Hermann about a month ago and tied the knot without making a big deal about it to anyone else. “It’s just like Vegas. You can do it all in one day here. No blood test or anything. They just ask you if you’re already married, and you can lie if you want to,” Jon said.

Although the wedding was personal and low key, the party celebrating it was kind of the opposite. The refrigerator magnets they had made up to promote the wedding party, which was dubbed Rosenfest, bore the tagline, “Leveraging 45 years of marriage experience.” A party reminder encouraged people to take time to stop and smell the Rosens.

I tried Googling “Inappropriate Wedding Gifts” to figure out what to give the Rosens, and I did find several “Inappropriate Wedding Gifts” lists, but as usual, I found ideas that are not my own to be lame. But then I remembered that Jon has been a reader of Woods To Food, so I was inspired to give them something from the book. Of course my first thought was squirrel, but it was 106 on the day I needed to the get the gift, and when I poked my head outside the door at the farm, all of the squirrels were holed-up in the shade.

That, and I knew that a fresh squirrel dish wouldn’t be needed that night. Meat for the party was being provided by Sean McCollegan. Sean has a smoker he and friend built that looks like a tornado shelter for two or three families. He’s starting a catering business on the side called The Cowbell. For the party he smoked pulled pork, ribs and brisket, and all three were the best I ever had. I wouldn’t really want to put my squirrel up against that.

But I did have the wild blackberries, hand-picked by three generations of Koenigs. There is a recipe in the book was for Blackberry Cordial, with the entire ingredient list being blackberries, sugar and vodka.

I purchased a bottle of McCormick’s vodka for the recipe, primarily because it’s a local food product, made in Weston, Missouri, but also because it is $7 a bottle, compared to the fancy stuff that is $20 and up.

For the recipe you put it all in a quart jar and cap it. Every other week you open it up and stir it, for two months, or more if you want it to be even better. The amount of liquid only made the jar about half-full, but I think maybe all the extra air was necessary for the fermentation process. It looked a little skimpy for a wedding gift, but since their party info said “Absolutely No Gifts,” I figured it would suffice.

The wedding party was tremendously fun. Fake Elvis recreated the wedding ceremony on their front lawn. Although all of Jon and Lisa’s running friends made for the trimmest, most athletic looking party crowd I had ever seen, they had no problem putting away the massive about of meat (15 racks of ribs, 15 pounds of pulled pork, 14 pounds of brisket)  Sean smoked up for them. And considering Jon’s booze consumption at the party, having to wait a few months to drink the black berry cordial will probably be just fine.