Slow Drinks

I drove up to New York on Thursday afternoon to begin prepping for an event meant to be held last night at a beautiful outdoor park/venue/ampitheater called Little Island in Manhattan. The event was rained out almost immediately (literally sold one drink 😵‍💫), but we got to hang out in the dressing room with everyone who was supposed to be working the event, including Susan Sarandon who was one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met. We all ate the food and drank the drinks that we worked really hard to prepare, and had a great time despite it all.

American “Tartufo” Amaro - Dog-harvested Appalachian truffles, hardy orange peels, spicebush berries, spruce tips, staghorn sumac, shagbark hickory bark, juniper berries.
Of all the styles of amaro, the tartufo (Italian for “truffle”) category has always symbolized a holy grail for me. Part of this is that I’ve never tasted a tartufo amaro as they aren’t commercially available here in the US. The other is that truffles represent the ultimate treasure for foragers because they grow out of sight in underground symbiosis with tree roots and can only be gathered with the highly trained sense of smell of dogs and/or truffle pigs.
Although truffles are most commonly associated with France and Italy, there are some species that can be found growing here in the US. These include the black, white, and brown truffles of Oregon, the pecan truffles of the southern and central US, and a few species of Appalachian truffles which can be found growing throughout much of the mountainous eastern US.
I’ve long since succumbed to the fact that I will probably never forage truffles on my own and my hopes of trying a traditional Italian tartufo amaro have all but disappeared through the years. However, I decided to try my hand at making my own tartufo when the folks from .market contacted me about using their online marketplace and I learned about the folks at in Asheville, NC who harvest native Appalachian truffles, Imaia gigantea, and ship them nationwide.
This was my first time encountering domestic truffles and I was absolutely enamored with their earthy, woodsy, almost cheesy aroma. Here, I infused them into a locally-inspired take on a tartufo amaro with other foraged ingredients I ordered from the foraged.com site including hardy oranges and staghorn sumac for acidity, and spicebush berries, spruce tips, shagbark hickory, and juniper berries for spice. I’ll let these ingredients macerate in 151 proof spirit for a little over a month before barrel-resting, then diluting and sweetening with maple sap + syrup harvested from the trees in our yard.

Slow Drinks x My Loup
A few snapshots from last night’s pop-up at .phl featuring style drinks done with techniques and ingredients. We started planning this event back in June and have been busy foraging, fermenting, and infusing for months to create all these amazing one-off cocktails. Obviously, pop-ups and collaborations are incredibly fun, but when two old friends put their heads together and pull out all the stops, the result was truly something special. Offerings included:
Foraged Old Fashioned - fig leaf bourbon, sassafras syrup, black walnut bitters
Pine Barrens Cosmo - vodka, foraged cranberries, italicus, combier
Persimmon Milk Punch - japanese whisky, jamaican rum, Danny’s persimmons, lemon oleo- + spices
My Loup x Slow Drinks Amaro Sour - fall genepy amaro, cardamaro, maple, lemon, egg white
Juniper Transfusion - vodka, grape sorbet, fermented juniper tonic