The Sexiest Blackberry Syrup Ever! is the best thing that happened to my shitty sparkling wine, pancakes, and vanilla ice cream all year. I literally use this stuff in or on anything I possibly can, hence why I make about 4 cups of it at one time – you can’t ever have enough. If there’s a new syrup in town, this babe is the sexiest syrup around.
BLACKBERRY PICKING:
I sometimes go up to the old property I used to live at the first time I lived in OR. Once called and forever known as, the house on the hill. We had 30 acres but were only responsible for 3. It had a barn, a bunk house (with a dilapidated old piano to make it extra fucking cool), an old & unused chicken coop (where my roommate would write like a madman on my grandpa’s old typewriter I had given him – downing cheap beers and lighting the next cigarette with the last… ahhh the good old days ;)), a huge garage where we shot darts daily, played super unsafe drinking games almost nightly (this involved axes, chinese stars, nails, and flying hammers, all whilst pounding AMAZING IPA’s and yes, PBR – our stock for beer pong – ’cause yeah, we had that in there, too), HUGE veggie and flower gardens that thankfully one member of the household could actually be responsible enough to water, an old boat that someone had started to build but never finished (drinking and smoking happened here, and was a viewing point for the horseshoe pit that we built, and the turkey vultures circling above), a homemade forge where my other roommate made some suh-weet stuff, and how the rest of us thought we’d die in a fire one day due to lack of safety (naturally, we didn’t do anything about it), a fire pit where some (hehe) fell asleep in the wee hours of the morn, and woke up to a sunburnt back at 9:00 AM face first in the grass (and only because the painter who was painting the exterior of the house told a roommate, “those 2 girls are gonna fry, wake ’em up,” and then that same dude never missed a chance to comment on her sunburnt back’s “racing stripe” in the creepiest of ways), and of course, the house, that had an old western style piano (compliments of the 2 awesome and crazy hippies next door who frequently rode up drunk on their ride-on mower) where I could rock out on some old Bob Dylan (Keep it with Mine, anyone?), 2 fireplaces, and a ton of crazy cats (pun intended, both the animal and people). Damn! Now that I’ve written all of this, I am, for the very first time, acknowledging how incredibly dope my life was! The crazy days… and they were most definitely cah-raaaaaazzzyyyyy! And shit… I just realized I have SOOO many more insane stories about this house that this could be its own book! Hey! Maybe one day!
Okay, I digress, a lot, however, the property stills exists (as of recently sans house, and is being turned into a park soon – most of it has already turned into a park – hey, at least they didn’t pave paradise!). I go up there to pick blackberries and all kinds of fruits and nuts still. Reminds me of good times and shit. Free, fresh, and organic goods! Hell yeah! I came home with bags, I mean bags of blackberries, stained sneakers, and torn up arms. It was a great day. 😉 I knew I wanted to make blackberry syrup. It wasn’t until I was in the midst of making it that I realized how versatile it could be. All of the photos below will show you a few of the ways I used this sexy deliciousness. Crazy easy, crazy tasty, and crazy quick. Enjoy this babe! 😉
Please leave a comment below and let me know how you use yours! -FGG
For this recipe, nothing but the Led Zeppelin tune that is most fitting for the sexiest of syrups… 😉
The Sexiest Blackberry Syrup Ever! (Makes approximately 4 cups)
Ingredients:
8 cups fresh blackberries
2 1/4 C sugar
1/4 C honey or agave
1 Tbl fresh lemon juice
2 tsp pectin – add a bit more for a syrup that is a bit thicker
Directions:
In a pot, bring the blackberries to a boil over medium to medium high heat.
Reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes – should be very soft
Mash the berries
Put the blackberries in a sieve and strain the juice
Scoop out the puree (I save the scooped berries for toppings on ice cream etc)
Put the blackberry juice back into the pot and add the sugar and lemon juice
Boil for approximately 3 minutes
Add the pectin and stir for a minute or two more
Done!