From obscurity to ubiquity, finger limes and their highly effective citrus flavour are in so most of the issues we eat and drink now. However what are they, the place do they arrive from, and what’s the story with finger lime gin?
Excessive on a plateau of the Blue Mountains a few hours west of Sydney Australia, Lee Etherington—farmer by commerce, inventor by function and distiller accidentally—stares out over his uncommon crop.
From the rows of stumpy shrub-like bushes dangle darkish fruit that look a bit like fingers. Nearer up, their bumpy inexperienced and deep darkish purple peel extra resembles the pores and skin of a lime.
Certainly, these are finger limes—one in every of six citrus fruits native to Australia—and one which has grow to be extremely standard in recent times.
Lee reaches into the branches and plucks a finger lime, which in fact seems extra like a bloated chilli or an okra than a finger, and snaps it open and squeezes gently.
Inside will not be what you’d anticipate.
Neither seeds nor juice—nor bones for that matter—lurk inside. And somewhat than the segments you anticipate in citrus fruit; finger lime flesh is packaged in tiny balls like salmon roe.
The truth is, the fruit is sometimes called finger lime ‘caviar’. These brilliant inexperienced and purple beads are bursting with tart, tasty citrus juice. And so they’re a revelation.
Finger limes, hibiscus and Lee Etherington
Lee’s first success was truly with hibiscus flowers. He developed the approach for placing the flowers into jars and preserving them in brilliant purple syrup. We used his hibiscus flowers in our cocktail e-book once we first began Mr & Mrs Romance so a few years in the past.
Lee even broke into the States with this product and now sells his creations in over 50 nations all over the world.
However with finger limes, Lee determined he needed to craft a gin that made essentially the most of this uncommon caviar-shaped fruit. Different distilleries have finger lime caviar of their bottles, however as a result of the fruit is heavier than the spirit, the beads simply settle on the backside of the bottle.
After ten years—sure, ten years—of R&D, Lee has provide you with a method utilizing a protein from a lotus that creates a type of internet contained in the gin. It’s flavourless, colourless, odourless and is totally pure, nevertheless it holds up the little balls of finger lime, showing to droop them all through the liquid.
It means you’ll be able to actually see the finger lime caviar completely, nevertheless it additionally means each pour ensures some finger lime items—not simply whoever will get to the tip of the bottle.
What’s extra, Lee determined the gin wanted one thing additional—one other flavour profile. So he soaks the finger lime caviar in a very separate gin for the fruit to soak up these flavours earlier than they go into the bottle. Successfully, you’re getting two gins in a single.
And since Lee doesn’t prefer to cease for very lengthy, he’s produced one other fingerlime gin utilizing the deep purple finger limes too.
The issue with finger limes
It might be excellent news to be taught that farming finger limes was a simple occupation, wouldn’t it.
Sadly, that’s not the case.
As Lee explains as we stroll around the orchard, the bushes are coated in lengthy, sharp thorns, which makes hand-picking disagreeable. However as a result of the fruit is sort of delicate, machine harvesting isn’t an possibility.
We’re right here at Lee’s farm with the wonderful Nip of Braveness crew!
Finger lime pores and skin is filled with bitter oils that, if blended with the fruit, ruins the flavour. The oils are additionally very sticky and don’t come off your pores and skin simply both.
What’s extra, finger limes—particularly the purple ones—prefer to ripen abruptly. Lee paints the image of everybody dashing into the orchard in an effort to select as many ripe fruit as they’ll, all on the identical day. After that, the fruit is commonly previous it.
And simply so as to add an additional layer of issue, every finger lime can also be stuffed with tiny seeds, which have to be eliminated earlier than they are often processed.
However the lethal icing on this explicit cake is the land here’s a favorite spot for one of many world’s most harmful spiders.
The extremely venomous and aggressive Sydney funnel-web spider, which has a chunk so highly effective it may well simply pierce your thumbnail with its fangs, likes to dwell in burrows in comfortable soil.
And there are telltale holes actually in every single place on the orchard flooring.
However while you take that first sip of essentially the most spectacular gin and tonic you’ve ever had, effervescent with little spheres of finger lime and bursting with that effervescent lime flavour, you realise all of the analysis and laborious work, all of the thorny ache and danger of dying has been price it.
You’ll be able to decide up your bottle of Wild Hibiscus Co Finger Lime Gin right here.
You also needs to take a look at our full evaluation of this gin right here on our common column with hero to Australian craft spirits Nip of Braveness.
