Gardens are earthy; gardens have dirt. Gardens are gritty, grimy and sometimes slimy. Gardens offer sustenance for the table, things you scrub and wash, saute and roast and stew.
Gardens are not things that compel most people to start thinking about sparkling water, lemonade or martinis.
But they should be.
Sticking a sprig of mint in your iced tea may mark your only flirtation with the happy intersections of gardens and beverages. Just thinking about that drink makes you swoon, though, so why not broaden the list of drinks you can fancy up with garden harvests?
Herbs – not turnips – hum at the heart of the beverage garden. Spearmint and peppermint. Lemon verbena. Calendula. Lavender.
What’s a dollop of pleasure? Strolling into your beverage garden, clipping sprigs of anise hyssop and lemon balm, squeezing the leaves and stems in your palm, tearing the bundle a few times, and dropping it in a glass full of ice. Squeeze a wedge of lemon over everything, and abandon it in the glass. Pour seltzer water to the rim. Stir. Sip.
Herbs perform well in Colorado, but growing them isn’t effortless. We chatted with two area herb experts about what it takes to turn a patch of soil into a thriving beverage garden.
The bottom line: Most – but not all – herbs that work for beverage flavors will succeed, if not flourish, along the Front Range. Many of them will thrive as perennials, meaning they will come back year after year.
One piece of good news about herbs: Many of them are not overly fussy about their soil. They prefer good drainage, and so they generally don’t favor heavy clay soil – in other words, much of the soil of the Front Range – but simply adding compost or other organic matter to clay soil will help immensely.
It’s better, too, if the soil is “on the lean side,” says Sue Oberle of Oberle Botanicals in Fort Collins, an herb farm. “Hold off on the fertilizer. The flavors are much better if they aren’t fertilized.”
Oberle recommends using a drip system to water the herbs, because it’s the most efficient. But the occasional sprinkle works well too. Most herbs don’t need much water. Mint is a little bit thirstier. If they look like they need water, give them some.
And if you know you’re going to harvest a bunch of herbs in coming days, lay off the watering. The flavors are more concentrated when the leaves aren’t fat with water, Oberle says.
Mint
Of all the herbs, mint probably is the most versatile for beverages. From iced tea to mojitos to mint juleps – and much more – a sprig of two can broadcast either a wallop or a whisper of flavor.
Mints “do so well here they can be on the aggressive side,” says Oberle. “You need to pay attention to them. You don’t want to let them flower because they will cross very readily with anything else in that family; they will drop their seed and then the stuff that comes up won’t be nearly as high a quality as what you had at first. In fact, it can end up tasting skunky.”
Oberle is partial to a variety of spearmint called “best,” but many others work well. She loves a variegated pineapple mint. Lime mint has a pleasant citrus overtone, and given its flavors – mint and lime – she’s selling a lot of it to restaurants for mojitos.
“The mojito has done wonders for my mint sales,” she says.
Orange mint has a tough time over-wintering, she says, but chocolate mint – which tastes “just like a Girl Scout cookie” – performs marvelously.
Mint will grow in full sun, but it prefers some afternoon shade.
Bryan Reed with Osage Gardens in New Castle recommends planting mint in a container that you “plunge in the ground and put dirt over.”
“That way the mint doesn’t spread and take over the whole area,” he says.
Lemon balm
Both Reed and Oberle swoon over lemon balm, which has no problem standing up to the Front Range’s sometimes challenging conditions. One of Reed’s favorite things to do with lemon balm, as well as mints and other lemony herbs like lemon thyme, is to stick their leaves in a glass with some sugar and smash them with something flat.
“The oils from the herbs mix with the sugar and make a paste, which is great for drinks or even cake decorating,” he says. “Lavender buds are great for that too, as are rose petals.”
One issue with lemon balm, Oberle says, it it “self-seeds like crazy.”
“You have to stay on top of it,” she says. “I wouldn’t let it flower.”
Anise hyssop
Don’t plant anise hyssop just for the gentle spray of licorice flavor it will give your beverage. The plant grows tall, with dark leaves and long blossoms that nearly glow purple. What do they invite to the garden? Butterflies. Lots of butterflies.
The flowers, too, keep their fragrance after they die, and unlike mint and lemon balm, anise hyssop is not aggressive.
Lavender
This herb adds a distinct flavor to beverages, but use a light hand: a pinch too much, and you’ve got something tasting like soap.
All of the herbs referenced here should return year after year, but don’t count on all of them lasting forever. Lavender can keep coming up for more than just five years, but it tends to get woodier and less dense with vegetation as it ages. Count on five years at most for a lavender plant. And if the winter is especially forbidding, you might lose the plant. Reed recommends covering lavender plants with mulch or hay for the winter.
Oberle prefers the “Munstead” and “Lady” lavender varieties of the herb for the Front Range. Regardless of what variety you use, make sure the soil has excellent drainage. Lavender falters when its roots are wet for too long.
Reed likes to mix pink lemonade with peach schnapps, and garnish it with a lavender stalk.
Mmm.
Lovage
Lovage has a slight celery taste, a flavor welcome with mint and, of course, more savory beverages like Bloody Marys. One of the best things about lovage, says Oberle, is the plant’s stems. They are hollow and straight – perfect straws.
Basil
The stuff of pesto can also be the stuff of summertime drinks. A little sugar cuts the bitterness, making it a great substitute for mint or lemon balm. It’s all in the muddling – smashing the herb in the bottom of the glass to release its flavors. Basil grows like a weed here and comes in many forms, including mellow Thai basil, which doesn’t overpower other flavors in a beverage.
Staff writer Douglas Brown can be reached at 303-954-1395 or djbrown@denverpost.com.
RECIPES
Mint Julep
This classic Southern drink tastes good anywhere, especially when the weather heats up and the smell of mint takes over your garden. The perfect start to a summer barbecue. From “Cocktails Galore,” by Kate Moseley. Serves 1.
Ingredients
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon chopped mint leaves
1 tablespoon water
1 1/2 parts bourbon
1 small bunch of fresh mint
Directions
Put the sugar and chopped mint in a mortar and bruise the leaves with a pestle to make a paste. Add the water and continue stirring. Fill an old-fashioned glass half-full with crushed ice. Add the mint syrup and bourbon. Fill the glass with more crushed ice and tuck the bunch of mint into the ice with a couple of short straws.
Thai-pirinha
This riff on the classic Brazilian caipirinha adds easy-to-grow Thai basil to the mix, giving it a fresh summertime edge. If you don’t have Thai basil, experiment with lemon basil instead. Cachaca, a popular Brazilian spirit derived from sugar cane, can be purchased at larger area liquor stores. Serves 1.
Ingredients
1 lime, cut into eight pieces
6 leaves Thai basil
1-2 teaspoons granulated sugar, depending on how sour your limes are
2-3 ounces cachaca, depending on how boozy you want it
Directions
Place lime pieces, Thai basil leaves and granulated sugar in bottom of heavy bar glass. Using a muddler (or the handle of wooden spoon), muddle sugar into lime and leaves until sugar is mostly dissolved and leaves are limp. Add a few ice cubes to glass, add cachaca and stir vigorously. Serve.
