Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Name this Immune Elixir!

It kills nasty bacteria, and helps fight viruses. Inflammation in the human body, which research increasingly cites for a host of diseases and conditions, gets hobbled by it. A miracle drug? Well, it certainly is not a pharmaceutical the health-boosting elixir is not hatched by white-jacketed chemists in suburban laboratories, sold in pharmacies and saddled with a litany of worrisome side - effects.

No, this is Fire Cider, and starting this week, we are selling our Fire Cider crafted in house, here at Fresh Thymes.

This gorgeous tonic, which has served as a potent folk medicine for generations, is a fermented beverage involving raw apple cider vinegar, turmeric, horseradish, garlic, onion, ginger, hot chilies, fresh citrus, and a dash of raw honey to lightly sweeten the pot. We embraced it some months ago, and decided upon tasting to experiment with our own creation. Our inaugural batch has been fermenting for a few weeks, and now it is ready to pour!

We are all about seasonal improvisation, and so will toy with our recipe throughout the year, adding different health promoting (of course!) vegetables and roots to each batch as they are harvested. If you swing by Fresh Thymes for the next week or so, in addition to the base (the list of ingredients that normally are used to make fire cider) the tonic will also include green onion and cilantro, in honor of the lightness and green-ness of spring. Sometimes we may remove the hot chilies, to make a nightshade-free batch. Other times, we will add adaptogenic herbs, like astragalus and ashwaganda to modulate our immune system, or supplement the fermentation with beets or kohlrabi. It all depends on what is in season, and our inspirations for new recipes.

We celebrate Fire Cider for its anti-microbial, anti-bacterial, anti-viral and anti-inflammatory properties. This is strong stuff! We also trumpet its ability to aid with digestion. Flavor? We dig it, but fire cider is not something to sip and savor, like a glass of Oregon Pinot Noir or a pint of Omission IPA. The horseradish can give it a nose-scorching, wasabi-like kick, and the base of raw ingredients are weighted heavily towards the fiery thus, the elixirs name. We serve Fire Cider by the shot glass, and find it is both a wonderful apertif (something sipped before a meal, to help nurture appetite) and a digestif (a post-prandial treat that promotes digestion).

Never tried fire cider? Crazy for the stuff? It can be bought in bottles, here and there, but try our home-crafted version. We fuss over our big mason jars packed with fermenting goodness, tweaking recipes and toiling to hike the batches with as much health-amplification as possible. We down at least a shot of fire cider a day, and we have a feeling it might become part of your routine, too.





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