Bounce (but only if you're 21+)

Wisconsin has a lot of proud traditions - most surrounding food and drink (and sports). Some are
obvious, like the Green Bay Packers. Some are lesser known outside of the Midwest, like Friday Fish Fry and brandy Old Fashioneds  sweet. Some are nearly unknown, unless you live in Wisconsin, like Cherry Bounce.




Wikipedia has a tiny entry on Cherry Bounce, which doesn't allude to the Midwestern custom at all.

Cherry Bounce is a liqueur made by infusing brandy with cherries and sugar. Some recipes will use rum, whiskey or vodka instead of brandy.

The English hamlet of Frithsden claims to have originated the Cherry Bounce.

A lane leading off the Old High Street in nearby Hemel Hempstead is named Cherry Bounce and is shown having had this name in maps dating back to the early 19th century.

That's the whole thing...

On this side of the pond, Martha Washington actually had a recipe for Cherry Bounce (which can be found online) and legend has it that George packed a canteen of it for a trip west across the Allegheny Mountains in September 1784.

With the trend in craft cocktails and the resurrection of old, classic drink recipes, Cherry Bounce is making a national comeback of sorts. A Google search yields a lot of recipes from popular and trusted sources like The Beekman Boys, Epicurious, Imbibe Magazine, Cooks.com and more. However, these recipes are a lot fancier than a traditional Wisconsin Bounce. They call for spicing the cherries with things like cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove. They also add a step that Wisconsin recipes don't bother with - macerating the cherries for a period of time before adding the alcohol.

The Wisconsin recipe is simple and calls for a total of four ingredients: tart cherries, sugar, alcohol, and time.

Tart cherries. In our state, there's yet another thing we're mighty proud of - Door County cherries (tm). Yeah... they're probably not REALLY trademarked but they should be. For truly traditional Wisconsin Bounce, Door County Montmorency pie cherries are the ones you want. Fortunately, my backyard cherry tree has Montmorencys on it and it was VERY prolific this year.

Sugar. Get a lot. Cherry Bounce is a liqueur - very thick and syrupy.

Alcohol. Like all Wisconsin cocktails, brandy is the preferred and traditional alcohol for Bounce. I'm not sure what the Wisconsin fascination is with brandy... it's too sweet for me. This is one place where the east-coaster in me takes over and I make my Bounce with bourbon. I've also seen it made with rum.

Time. So, the rule is that you put up your Cherry Bounce in early July when the Door County cherries come ripe and you let it sit until Christmas. If you're smart, you save some cherries in the freezer and put up a new batch of Bounce just before Christmas so that you have some in the early summer just before the Door County harvest happens.

Now, how you put your Bounce together is up for debate. Ask 10 Wisconsinites and you'll get 10 variations (within a small range of variables). Last year, I put up Bounce using unpitted sweet cherries because that's what I had too many of. I used bourbon and I cut the sugar back a bit. The resulting Bounce was good but not great. It wasn't enough of a liqueur (not enough sugar) and the cherry flavor was okay but not great. This year, I followed the more traditional recipe and I have great hopes for a truly excellent Christmas.

Traditional Wisconsin Cherry Bounce
makes one quart

• Fill a 1 qt Mason jar half full with pitted, tart (pie) cherries (Montmorency)
• Cover the cherries with 2 C white cane sugar*. Screw on the lid and shake vigorously until the cherries are coated.
• Add 1/2 qt of brandy (or bourbon, or rum, or even vodka) to fill the jar.
• Screw on lid tightly and shake to mix well. 
• For the next day or so, shake the Mason jar occasionally to finish dissolving the sugar.
• The cherries may settle a bit and it's worth opening the jar back up and adding enough pitted cherries to fill the entire jar.

 Put the jar in a cool, dark place and let it sit until Christmas.  Open and enjoy as a shot, mixed with club soda, or with hot water for a cherry toddy.

*I used a cup and a half of sugar. I simply couldn't bring myself to add that much sugar to the jar. We'll see how it turns out.

Last week, we got blueberries in our fruit CSA and my friend Kristine got really creative and made Blueberry Bounce with them. She used vodka as her liquor (which I think was a good choice for blueberries). There may soon be some jars of blue nectar curing in my closet with the red ones.

- Alex

Advanced Gardening & Your Golf Swing

Gardening is like golf. The first time you get out there, you may (like me) discover that the basic game isn't really all that hard. But then (like me) you play for a bit and discover that there's always something new to learn - some trick that might make your game better or some piece of knowledge that you didn't know the last ten times you played. And you realize that you're really not as good as you thought were were - and you may never actually master the game. That's the kick in the head, right there.

I'm not sure why I love gardening - the same way I'm not sure why some people torture themselves with golf year after year (I gave up the game) - because every year I find some new challenge that makes me wonder why I put so many hours into digging in the dirt.


A number of years ago a huge windstorm blew over my beloved lilac tree. The tree was very old - it was probably planted when the house was built in 1908 - and it had been badly pruned over the years, resulting in top-heaviness that didn't bode well. It was creaky and fragile but I loved it because it would bloom these huge, amazing flowers every spring and I could smell them through the kitchen window or when sitting on the back patio.

When the wind took down the tree, I thought that maybe I could salvage it by staking it back up and letting it re-root itself. But my wise gardening neighbor said that wouldn't work and offered to help remove it. He brought over his chain saw and I watched as my backyard companion was dismantled and hauled away.


Obviously, this left a gaping hole where the tree used to be. Suddenly, I could see WAY too much of my neighbor's yard and house. So I went on a hunt for a replacement.


In the end, I settled on a dwarf, grafted cherry tree as this was the best of both worlds - I'd get sweet smelling cherry blossoms in the spring and then I'd get sweet fruit to eat for a number of weeks in the summer. I found Raintree Nursery in Washington state that sold trees that, by grafting different cherry types to one common trunk, would produce multiple varieties of cherries on the same tree - in my case, two types of sweet cherries as well as montmorency pie cherries. Also, because it was grafted, it wasn't necessary to have two trees (a male and female) in order to produce fruit. The tree is, by definition, a hermaphrodite.

The tree came, tiny and sort of puny looking. I followed the enclosed planting instructions. I read multiple articles on caring for fruit trees. And I anxiously awaited my first year of fruit.


The third year the tree was in the ground, it started to fruit in earnest. I made a small pie with the sour cherries and would simply graze off the tree when I was working in the yard. The forth year, the birds and squirrels discovered the tree and I did battle for season to see who would actually get to enjoy the fruit. Year five brought a bumper crop - more cherries than I could eat! I was, literally, giving them away to neighbors. It was the sweet smell of gardening success. But with this success also came a new problem... some of the leaves on the tree were curling in a weird way.

One of the great benefits of living in a town that has an Agriculture school at the local college is that you can call them for advice. I called the botany department and happily discovered that there was actually an "arbor hotline" that I could call for tree emergencies. So, I called. I described the problem. I sent photos in. The entomology department was consulted because there was the possibility that it was a bug of some sort. In the end, I was told to wait a year and see what happened in the next season. That was very unsatisfying.

The following spring (last year) the leaf curling started again. However, I had bigger fish to fry - an infestation of Japanese beetles that were destroying the leaves. These things are relentless. Happily it turns out that they're very easy to eradicate. Early in the morning, while the beetles are still slow moving from the chill of the night, take a bowl of warm soapy water out to the infested plant and pick them off and drown them. It's a bit labor intensive but it works like a charm. As for the curling leaves, most of them were at the ends of branches so I just cut them off and hoped for the best.

Drown them in soapy water when they're sleepy. Bwahahaha!

This spring, like clockwork, my lovely cherry tree (now at full height) bloomed and made a mass of cherries. I didn't pay much attention to it because the weather's been odd and my garden attention as been elsewhere. Then one afternoon, my neighbor was visiting and she mentioned the payload of cherries waiting to ripen. For the first time this year I REALLY looked at my tree - and it looked like someone had taken a curling iron to all the branches. I grabbed a curled leaf and turned it over only to be horrified by the GIANT MASS OF APHIDS on its underside. GACK!  Those of you who know me well know that I don't do well with certain bugs and, folks let me tell you, these things are disgusting! They're small and black and sticky - and they were everywhere.

At least I finally discovered the cause of the problem.

So, in case you're interested in "what I learned about gardening this year"...

Cherry trees get these things called Black Cherry Aphids. They're insidious little buggers that are actually "ranched" by ants. In other words, the ants help the aphids in order to harvest the sweet, sticky stuff that the aphids secrete. The aphids mortal enemy is the ladybug, which is awesome because I love ladybugs and now I have another reason to encourage them in my garden. So, the reason the infestation has gotten worse each year is because the ants have increasingly helped the spread of the aphids and I've done nearly nothing to stop the spread.

And, what does one do to eradicate Black Cherry Aphids, you ask? Surprisingly, it's not all that complicated. First, you have to stop the ants from getting up into the tree by wrapping the trunk in this stuff called Tanglefoot or, if you're feeling particularly frugal, double-sided tape. Then you have to get rid of the aphids you do have. If you're like me and you don't want to use chemicals, you can spray the tree with soapy water. The soft-bodied aphids will suffocate and die. However, it's hard to reach the aphids once the leaves have curled around them so this tactic has mixed success. I also don't like the idea of possibly killing other, beneficial bugs that are on the tree. Alternately, you can buy lady bugs and release them on the tree. Of course, you run the risk that your newly purchased lady bugs will just fly off to some other tree or yard because, you know, they don't really have a contract with you or your particular job. I found a number of ladybugs already feasting on the aphids on my tree so I took extra special care to leave them to their task. This year, I decided to simply cut off as many of the infected leaves as possible and hope for the best. We'll see...

Chow down, little lady!

Next spring I'll have the knowledge I need in order to ensure an aphid-free cherry crop. Unlike my golf game, my garden game just keeps getting better. I think I found the right way to spend my warm-weather months.

- Alex

Hot as Hades

According to me, we are living in hell. (FYI, anything over 90 degrees is hell.) This means that I did a lot of activities indoors this weekend. I am a big baby.

Central Air = Best Friend

With all this time indoors this weekend, you would think that I might have cleaned a room or two. Nope. I was in the mood for fun. And that means my hands are busy making.

Girls who sit and knit in the central air make progress on their sweaters!

I will admit, the one thing that did drag me outdoors this weekend was the cherries at the farmer's market. They are finally in season and...oh lordy, they were worth the trip in the heat. With cherries-a-plenty at my house and hot temperatures, I decided to make some cherry ice cream.

A love, love, love the bing cherries.

Simple vanilla ice cream with cherries mixed in. A recipe with just a few ingredients to keep it as light as possible. I poured over a few of my books and distilled down a basic recipe.

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Cherry Ice Cream
1 cup whole milk
2 cups heavy cream
3/4 cup sugar
1-1/2 tbsp vanilla extract
2 cups of quartered pitted cherries

Combine milk, cream and sugar in a bowl and stir until the sugar dissolves. (I use a whisk, but be careful because you don't want to stir too vigorously or you will make whip cream!) Add the vanilla.

Place your mixture in the ice cream maker and let it go for about 10 minutes. Then, add the cherries. Let the ice cream maker do it's job until you have ice cream. (For me, it was another 20 minutes.) Transfer to a covered container and place in the freezer for at least 4 hours.

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Ice cream action.

During the ice cream-a-thon, there was also knitting, sewing, and drawing. It was a good (self-indulgent) weekend.

Little boys need Snoopy pajamas!

–Cassandra