The Tabletreeni. You heard it here first, folks.
First, the background. Recently, Creston cherry growers and juice producers Gary and Susan Snow were informed that their Tabletree black cherry juice had been named as a finalist for an award at World Juice 2012, an industry conference to be held in Barcelona, Spain, this month. The award? Best pure juice. In the world.
When the dust cleared and the Snows (and myself) did a bit of research and confirmed that this is a legitimate enterprise, people in the Creston Valley and beyond began to appreciate just what a big deal this was. Soon, we learned that they were up against only one competitor, a large Australian firm (about twice the size of SunRype, apparently).
On Oct. 10 I checked into Facebook and within seconds found a post from the Snows’ son, Micah. Tabletree had won. A few minutes later I had a message from Susan and shortly after a call came from her dad, Lew Truscott, also letting me know about the good news. You might have heard one of their several interviews on CBC Radio in the following days.
The Snows’ story isn’t an uncommon one among small farmers. They saw once high prices for late season cherries begin to drop and concluded their best hope for survival (the Truscotts aren’t newcomers to the business — this year the family celebrated its 100th year of farming in the Creston Valley) was to add value to their crops. They did their research and came up with a proprietary process they believed would make good quality juice. With the help of a B.C. innovations award, they got a small production plant going and have been making cherry juice (as well as smaller quantities of plum and apple juice, and reduction sauces) for three years. It is, and here the World Juice people got it right, an outstanding product. Pure juice with a small addition of honey and a tinge of cinnamon.
Excited at the news of the award, I decided to create a martini for the occasion. My first attempt was 1.5 ounces each of Hanger One vodka and Tabletree cherry juice, with a splash of Southern Comfort (in honour of Kansas City-born Gary Snow’s drawl). It was very nice. But then I happened upon an even better idea.
On a recent visit to the Okanagan we fitted in a visit to Okanagan Spirits, a highly regarded craft distillery that started out in Vernon. My primary interest was to check the gin and vodka, and to purchase some good quality tonic, which the distillery carries. In our tasting, we learned that Okanagan had only recently made its first ever batch of vodka from pears. Now, vodka can be made from any fruit or grain or vegetable that can be fermented to make alcohol, so the pear idea sounded like a good one. It has a very appealing pear aroma and a luscious, smooth taste. We were also impressed with one of the liqueurs we sampled. Sea buckthorn liqueur was a lovely surprise. Its beautiful orange fruit grows wild and is also farmed throughout the province and it has a pleasing, distinctive flavour.
So, as I thought more about my quest to develop a suitable celebratory martini, I opened my precious bottles of Okanagan Spirits pear vodka and sea buckthorn liqueur and mixed up the new concoction. 1.5 ounces each of Tabletree cherry juice and pear vodka and a 0.5-ounce splash of the liqueur. It was better than I could have hoped, with each flavour complementing the other, all merging into a very pleasant martini. Voila! The Tabletreeni! A made-in-B.C. way to celebrate some fantastic news for some wonderful people.
Lorne Eckersley is the publisher of the Creston Valley Advance.