Image via Wikimedia Commons

Earlier this year at the Northwest Flower & Garden Show,  I was hanging out with Jessi Bloom of NW Bloom (and author of Free-Range Chicken Gardens) in her exhibit booth. She had brought a selection of edible landscaping plants — reliable, hardworking shrubs, vines, trees and the like that would behave in the landscape and provide some food. The star of the show was Aronia melanocarpa, sometimes known as black chokeberry.

It’s a medium-sized shrub that puts out white blooms in spring and small dark fruit in fall. Nice enough plant, I thought.

Then she brought me over to the booth next to hers, where somebody had stashed away a bottle of aronia juice, and I got a taste. Wow! Imagine something between cranberries and wild, tart blueberries, and you’re close enough. It was rich, tart, and delicious.

And perfect for cocktails. I could see aronia becoming the American cassis. Harvest them when they’re ripe and juicy, put them in a jar with some high-proof vodka or grappa or grape eau-de-vie, and crush them gently. Let them sit for–oh, I don’t know–a few weeks, maybe? Then strain, and add simple syrup (equal parts sugar and water, heated until the sugar melts then allowed to cool) to taste, and let it sit another week or so.

Another approach, and this works with any fruit, really: Heat in a saucepan with just enough water to help it simmer, crush fruit gently as it cooks, and add sugar to taste. Let the sugar melt and the juice come out of the fruit. Strain, cool, and add vodka/eau-de-vie to taste. (Or not. You could just use it as a fruit syrup, but if you do that, refrigerate & use it quickly or store it in the freezer to preserve it.)

Anyway, the point of all of this is that according to this piece in the New York Times, aronias are about a bazillion times healthier than blueberries. So I’m thinking that a splash of aronia liqueur in sparkling wine, dry white wine, or club soda (with gin or vodka, over ice) is the way to go this summer.

Thanks, Jessi. I’m on it.

Oh, and last time I checked, Jessi was selling aronia, so if you’re in the Seattle area, check with her. Otherwise, Raintree usually has it but may be out for the season. I plan to check back come fall.

June 06 2013 06:30 PM — The Horticultural Society of New York, New York, NY

Doors open at 6 and there will be drinks!

June 09 2013 02:00 PM — Sycamore Bar & Flowershop,
Yes, it’s a flower shop AND a bar. So naturally, I’m doing an event there! $15 gets you a cocktail, a bouquet of cocktail-friendly plants and flowers, and a $5 donation to the Flatbush community garden.

June 13 2013 07:00 PM — WORD Bookstore, Brooklyn, NY
A cocktail demo and conversation with Rosie Schaap, author of Drinking with Men and cocktail writer for the New York Times.

June 17 2013 06:00 PM — Talking Leaves, Buffalo, NY
Drunken Botanist event with Talking Leaves at Mike A’s Lounge, Hotel @The Lafayette, 391 Washington Street.

And if you can’t be there? Here’s a rhubarb version of a Manhattan for you:

Rhubarb and Rye

A delightful twist on the classic Manhattan from Adam Chumas at Tilth in Seattle.

1.5 oz rye whiskey

.5 oz rhubarb-lemon verbena simple syrup

.5 oz fresh lemon juice

.5 oz sweet (red) vermouth

Shake all ingredients over ice and serve in a cocktail glass.

Rhubarb simple syrup

1 loosely-packed cup chopped rhubarb stalks

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

Other fruits or herbs to taste (lemon verbena, strawberry, scented geranium, for instance)

Combine all ingredients and simmer gently for 15 to 20 minutes. Once the stalks are soft, press them with a muddler or wooden spoon to release the juice. Allow to cool, then strain and bottle. Keep tightly sealed in the refrigerator. Adding an ounce of vodka as a preservative will help extend the life of the simple syrup.

The next time you’re sipping on a glass of something boozy, consider the plants behind your beverage. Some of them might spring immediately to mind: grapes in your wineglass, rye in your whiskey bottle, juniper in your gin and tonic. But what about sorghum and coriander? Cinchona and bitter orange?

An incredible diversity of grains, herbs and fruits goes into the world’s alcoholic drinks, which means that for the botanically minded, a trip to the liquor store is a little different than it is for the rest of us. Amy Stewart explains what it’s like in her new book, The Drunken Botanist. She once stopped by a liquor store with some fellow gardeners and got a little distracted, she writes:

“There wasn’t a bottle in the store that we couldn’t assign a genus and species to. Bourbon? Zea mays, an overgrown grass. Absinthe? Artemisia absinthium, a much-misunderstood Mediterranean herb. Polish vodka? Solanum tuberosum … Suddenly we weren’t in a liquor store anymore. We were in a fantastical greenhouse, the world’s most exotic botanical garden, the sort of strange and overgrown conservatory we only encounter in our dreams.”

As Stewart explains to NPR’s Renee Montagne, that trip led straight to the writing of The Drunken Botanist. “I was talking about [how] we, as gardeners, should be more interested in this stuff. I mean, look at a bottle of gin. There’s nothing in that bottle that isn’t a plant. And the evening wears on, and I finally said, ‘Somebody ought to write a book about this!’ And all my friends said, ‘Yeah, why don’t you do it? You’re the one who can’t shut up about it!’ ”

So she did, writing a book that makes familiar drinks seem new again. Stewart describes beer by way of the challenges of wheat fermentation, and her discussion of gin starts with how to pick juniper berries. Through this horticultural lens, a mixed drink becomes a cornucopia of plants: A Manhattan may contain just three ingredients and a garnish, but Stewart says that a single glass holds over 20 plants.

“You can start with the whiskey, which would contain barley, rye and wheat or corn. And of course it’s been soaked in an oak barrel, so let’s not forget that that’s another plant, the oak tree, that has a huge role in cocktails,” she explains. “And then you add sweet vermouth, which is a wine base — so there’s your grapes — and then vermouth has a lot of spices and herbs. And then you splash on some Angostura bitters, and Angostura bitters have, oddly enough, not Angostura bark, but has a lot of other roots and seeds. And the final ingredient in a Manhattan is, of course, a cherry, and so there’s one more plant.”

The Drunken Botanist is organized by ingredient, with entries for plants both common (barley is found in beer, vodka and whiskey) and unusual (violet liqueurs aren’t exactly a liquor cabinet staple). But Stewart argues that some odd-sounding plants are actually surprisingly common — like sorghum, for example. It’s not a familiar grain for most Americans, but elsewhere in the world it’s an alcohol staple.

“It’s grown across Africa and used to make this homemade beer, this cloudy, opaque beer,” Stewart says. “It’s also grown across Asia, and particularly in China, where it’s used to make mao-tai. … I think that sorghum might actually be the plan that turns up in more alcohol around the world than any other, believe it or not.”

In addition to featuring cocktail recipes, Stewart includes growing information for many of the ingredients she describes. Some plants, like barley, are not for the faint of heart, but others are beginner-friendly: Stewart recommends that home mixologist-gardeners check out the Mexican sour gherkin cucumber.

“It’s not technically a cucumber, but it’s very closely related,” she explains. “The fruits are the size of a grape and they’re green with little white markings, so they actually look like miniature watermelons. And they taste great: They’re sort of a little more tart than a regular cucumber, but they just look extraordinary.”

And the best part, for those of us who lack Stewart’s green thumb? “The vines happen to be very prolific, so you do not have to be a very good gardener.”

As someone who has managed to underwater a cactus, I’ll drink to that.

The full title of the book is Fermented Liquors: a Treatise on Brewing, Distilling, Rectifying, and Manufacturing of Sugars, Wines, Spirits, and All Known Liquors, Including Cider and Vinegar: Also, Hundreds of Valuable Directions in Medicine, Metallurgy, Pyrotechny, and the Arts in General, by Lewis Feuchtwanger.

The actual beautiful old weird creature that is this book is totally worth owning, but if you aren’t going to pick up a copy, it’s available as a free ebook from Google.

Anyway, it’s a fascinating compilation of recipes, including many that will be familiar and yet not familiar to modern drinkers. Lots of interesting uses for common plants, too. There is carrot wine. There is red cabbage dye. And I am so glad he managed to work pyrotechny into it, because I needed to know about that, too.

Everything about this table of contents explained what inspired me to write The Drunken Botanist. Corn beer? Elderberry wine? Beet sugar? Agave, ginger, etc?

Some of my favorite bits:

A mint julep recipe that features sugar, mint (so far, so good, right?), no whiskey at all, and–get this–rum, cognac, and GIN! GAH!

And then! An Egg Punch that calls for 24 egg yolks! Not the whites, but the yellows! The yolks. And please do note that this mixture of 2 dozen egg yolks, a full pound of sugar, and 1 1/2 bottles of rum is considered sufficient to serve six people.

Six.

And then there’s this. Plant dyes to turn your weird fermented liquors to the color of your choosing!

Cochineal is a bug, in case you didn’t know. A type of scale that excretes red stuff.

I had to look up orchill. It’s a lichen. The color is achieved through fermentation. Of course.

That’s your history lesson for the day. Cheers!

You, of course, should feel free to experiment and add your own secret botanical ingredients.

I’m particularly intrigued with the 1889 Aromoatic Bitters Kit, and the Orange Hop Bitters Kit.

and they sell refills, so you don’t have to buy the bottles every time.

Good stuff!  Oh, and by the way, if you’re super into bitters, the book to get is called–well, Bitters.  Brad Parson wrote it.  It’s a fine and beautifully illustrated book.  Check it out.

And if you’re looking for more make-your-own bitters ideas, this series of posts on Adventures in Cooking will get you going, as will this list from Organic Gardening.  I’ve also got a Pinterest board going with more recipes for DIY bitters and other infusions. 

And of all the homemade bitters recipes available online, I think this one is the clearest and easiest to follow.

The most essential ingredient in any batch of bitters is — well — the thing that gives it its bitterness.  Traditionally that bitterness comes from some sort of tree bark or root.  It’s usually quinine, from the cinchona tree, or angostura, from the angostura tree, or gentian root (from–yes, you guessed it — gentian plants.  Gentiana lutea, to be exact.)

None of this is easy to grow in the garden, or even in a spice shop, which is why I like the bitters kits so much.  But you can add some garden-grown ingredients to bitters.  Just be sure to dry them thoroughly first–fresh herbs can add a nice flavor to infused vodkas, but they get slimy and nasty fast, and give off some weird flavors if they’re left to soak too long. Dry them first, which gets the moisture out and leaves behind some strong flavors that work well in bitters. Such as these, always in dried form:

Lavender buds

Coriander (cilantro seeds)

Lemon verbena

Rose hips or petals

Lemongrass

Hops

Dandelion root

Fennel Seed

Hibiscus

Juniper berries (Use Juniperus communis; some other species are toxic)

Wormwood, Artemisia absinthum

Citrus peel

We’re still finalizing details on a few of these events, so to get all the latest information, go here for the complete tour schedule, and please do check with the venue if ticket sales or reservations are required.

Which means that I have quite a few lovely bottles of stuff, and for a long time, I had nowhere to put them.

Liquor bottles don’t easily lay flat in racks the way wine bottles do. For one thing, they’re all different sizes. And for another, you tend to open a liquor bottle and not drink it all at once. (at least, I hope you tend to do that.) And if you lay it on its side after it’s opened, it can leak.

So what ends up happening is that either you have a deep cabinet or cupboard filled with bottles, and you’re constantly rummaging around to try to find the thing you need, or you have cardboard boxes from the liquor store lining the hallway.

I had both.

Now I have this.

I ordered these shelves online (I can no longer find the place where I ordered mine, but just search around for wall-mounted display shelves with a lip like these–or the more handy among you can just nail a little trim piece to a 5-6 inch deep board and make them yourselves.)

I mounted them to the wall with L-brackets and strung bungee cords across them to hold them in place. (This is earthquake country, but I’d use them anyway–I put these shelves in the narrow hall between the kitchen, bathroom, and laundry room, where they could easily get jostled.)

It’s a great setup, and it holds most of my collection. The stuff that isn’t here includes assorted gins, vodkas, and whiskeys, which are stored in the aforementioned deep cabinets, which is not as big a deal because those are the staples around my house, and it’s no trouble for me to reach into the cabinet to find what I’m looking for.

So! There’s my liquid plant collection for you. Among the more wonderful items on the shelf:

Farigoule Thyme Liqueur

Averell Damson Plum Gin

and one of my favorite things in the world, the Italian Licore Strega.

One day last year, a mysterious courier arrived at my house. (Okay, the courier was not so very mysterious. She was driving plants to my local garden centers from Oregon-based Log House Plants.) Anyway, she had a special delivery for me from Log House’s owner, Alice Doyle.

A crazy-cool old leather case filled with drinking vinegars. Otherwise known as shrubs.

I was to open the case, pour myself a drink, and call Alice.

But first I had to choose my shrub.

So drinking vinegars are basically homemade concoctions of vinegar, sugar, and some kind of plant matter. As you can see here, Alice had been making drinking vinegars from everything: basil, artichoke fennel, sour cherry–

Even kale. You know I went for the kale! So the idea is that you make yourself a shrub by pouring the drinking vinegar into a glass, perhaps with an ice cube, and topping with soda water.

Alice even sent glasses along. She wanted me to have a very particular kind of shrub experience.

I was also very fond of blueberry shrub. And you know I could not resist the gold beet recipe:

Wow! They were all quite extraordinary. Imagine a fizzy, soda-like drink that is drier and so much more sophisticated than soda can ever be. Not as sour as you’d imagine a mouthful of vinegar to be, what with the sugar and botanical ingredients.

So–you know me. I had to mix a drink with it. I was not letting all that shrub go back to Oregon without first putting some vodka in it.

And shrubs have become quite hip in the cocktail culture these days, and you can make some interesting drinks with them. But you know what? A regular, non-alcoholic drinking vinegar and soda is actually a very fine thing. Restorative, in fact.

Check out Alice Doyle’s drinking vinegar recipes on her website.

Also read a little more about shrubs from Imbibe.

And there’s a fine bit from a few years back at The Cocktail Chronicles.

And a whole chain of cocktail recipes and other shrub-related posts at Stirred, Not Shaken.

More lovely recipes-how about blackberry shrub?

Still more recipes?  I like this cold process, with no heating of the fruit and sugar at all.

Shrubs! Amazing! Wonderful!

Oh, and if you don’t want to bother making your own? Austin-based Liber & Co makes a fine shrub. Bittermans is into it, too.

The ingredient list is endless (but I will supply one in a minute)–what we need to cover first is the technique!

Start with 2 bottles 750 ml bottle of dry white or rose wine.  (Surprise! Even sweet, red vermouth isn’t made with red wine.)

Add something a little boozier.  Brandy, grape eau-de-vie, cognac, grappa, even port or sherry.  Vermouth is usually 16-18% alcohol, so we need something to proof this up.

Now, are you using any fruit or fruit peel?  Berries, peaches, apples, citrus peel?  Soak that in about a 1/2 cup of brandy/other higher-proof spirit for 2 days. At the end of 2 days, take your brandy/fruit mixture and strain it.  You can toss the fruits. Keep the booze.

Then take half a bottle of wine, add your herbs and spices, and bring it to a boil.  Turn it off and let it sit.

Okay, this gets tricky and is easiest done in a copper pot.  If you want a dry vermouth, skip this step.  If you’re going for a sweet vermouth, you need to caramelize some sugar.  The best way to do this is to call over a friend of yours who is a pastry chef and ask them to do it.

Failing that, take 1 cup of sugar and just 1-2 teaspoons of water.  Slowly heat until the sugar is a warm brown color, but not burned.

Take it off the heat and SLOWLY dribble in your infused brandy mixture.  Mix until everything is combined into one happy syrup.

Now, into one big jar or oversized bottle (like a double-sized wine bottle), combine your herb/spice mixture with the remaining half a bottle of wine.  Add the sugar mixture, but if you’re not sure how sweet you want it, hold half of it back. Put the bottle in the fridge until it gets cold.

When it’s cold, take it out and strain a little bit into a glass.  How does it taste?  To make it sweeter, add more of your brandy/sugar mixture.  To make it drier or less intense, open that second bottle of wine and add some.

Once you like the balance of sweet to dry, strain it with a cheesecloth to get all the herbs and spices out, and enjoy!

Experiment! It’s just herbs and fruit mixed with wine!  It’s supposed to be fun!

Ingredient suggestions:

Spice shop ingredients:  Gentian root, Angelica root, Cardamom pods, star anise, vanilla bean

Garden ingredients: Oregano, sage, thyme, rosemary, bay leaf, coriander (cilantro seed), Wormwood (Artemesia absinthum)

Dried citrus peel

Fresh fruit

But what about ratafia?

“Ratafia” is one of those old words that referred to some kind of mixture of booze and fruit, but there are all kinds of variations on this recipe.  Some people infuse fruits and spices in cognac and call that a ratafia.  But what I’m talking about is an old recipe for aromatized, fortified wine.  This is all it is:

Take a bottle of dry white wine.  Pour it in a jar or larger bottle with 1/4 cup brandy, cognac, or some kind of higher-proof, fruit-based spirit.  Add 1/4 cup sugar.  Add some fruit and dried herbs and spices (maybe cinnamon, star anise, nutmeg, and orange peel?)  A vanilla pod is often added, but I find it can get overwhelming. Let it sit for 2 months, shaking regularly. Strain it and drink it.  Do not keep this around forever–it’s not a family heirloom, it’s a seasonal drink. So drink it this season.

It was great fun hanging out with a couple of pros all day and watching them work. (Oh, and there was some mixing of cocktails, too.) Anyway, you can see the results in the February issue of Sunset, which is just hitting the stands now.

And now–I’m delighted to share these charming hand-drawn illustrative plans of the cocktail garden that Susan Morrison of Creative Exteriors Landscape Design designed for me. Susan is a cocktail aficionado and an expert in small-space gardening: her book Garden Up! , co-authored with designer Rebecca Sweet of Harmony in the Garden, is the definitive guide to vertical gardening.

This garden was tricky to design. It’s situated in the narrow side yard off my kitchen door and much of it is only seven feet wide. It gets half a day of shade thanks to the shadow cast by my house. And I needed a wide, usable walkway for garbage cans and anything else that might ever have to get hauled from the back of the house to the front–in other words, it’s the only path around the house.

And–everything in the garden had to be a cocktail ingredient! And it had to grow in Humboldt County, where temps rarely get past 70 degrees.

We came up with the idea of using painted wooden containers to reflect the painted wood construction of my Victorian house and the rest of the neighborhood. Susan laid it all out, then I had the planters built locally, painted them myself, and had a new concrete walkway poured.

I’ll be posting more photos and details later, but the drawings (done after everything was built and planted) are so charming that I just wanted to share them now. Scroll down for plant lists. Oh, and you can just about all of these plants from Territorial’s Drunken Botanist Plant Collection. You can also find them in garden centers on the West Coast supplied by Log House Plants starting this spring.

Along the fence, which measures about 45 feet. This is the entire length of the garden. From left to right, containers only:

Calamondin citrus tree, lemongrass, Mexican sour gherkin cucumber, strawberry, Thai basil, Redventure celery, red pepper, ‘Raspberry Shortcake’ dwarf raspberry, Johnny jump-ups (in pots on purple shelf), pineapple sage, Triolife planter on a raised triangle stand with cilantro, basil, parsley, mint, and edible flowers. Mint growing out of planter/bar with edible strawberries above it on shelf built into fence, then, in the corner, ‘Black Lace’ elderflower with rhubarb growing underneath it. (Susan drew a tree where the elderberry is. Artistic license!) On the ground in between the planters are thyme and edible flowers like viola and calendula.

Now here’s an overview of the whole thing. You’ve already seen the elevation of the plants along the fence, which is shown here in the top part of the drawing. Here are the plants in the bottom portion, which runs along the house. Left to right:

Hops growing up trellis in back, then dwarf ‘Jelly Bean’ blueberry, and growing in a strip in the ground are elderberry, assorted black currant. The square container with tree indicated holds a sloe, Prunus spinosa. (I only know of two places to get them in the US: Forest Farm and Lincoln Oakes, and their quantities are limited.) Rectangular planters and ground surrounding them contain: Sage, thyme, winter savory, oregano, rosemary, fennel, dill, scented geranium, lavender, rugosa rose. ‘Peach Sorbet’ dwarf blueberry in round pot. Larger planting areas, bottom right, contain existing fuchsias. (the fruit makes a beautiful purple syrup!) In front, not shown, is a jasmine climbing over the front gate trellis. (Jasmine liqueur, anyone?)

And go here to read Susan Morrison’s post on the whole process.

Before & After

Because I am a big believer in showing gardens when they look like crap, not just when they look great, I searched around for the absolute worst photos I could find of this narrow side yard. This is one of those awkward spaces sandwiched between my kitchen door and my neighbor’s house. It was really the only spot that would work for a cocktail garden–we have chickens free-ranging in the back and fencing them out seemed too complicated, and the front yard was too exposed. That left this space, which is great because of the access to the kitchen, but awkward otherwise.

Here it is, in all its unweeded horribleness, from the front:

And here is more unweeded horribleness from the back looking toward the front:

This is the highly inaccurate and confusing diagram I sent to Susan, who lives six hours away and had to design the garden without ever visiting it:

and here is the totally meaningless sketch I sent, which was supposed to convey my ideas for the garden, whatever those were. Basically, I was trying to convey the idea of height and vertical gardening and bar-like drinking/hangout spaces, and also the idea of painted wood containers, because I live in a neighborhood of painted wood Victorian houses and it wouldn’t make sense here to do stone planters or Italian pottery or anything like that.

Here’s what I got back from Susan, after much discussion:

I knew I needed to replace the fence, which was on its way out anyway. I was also willing to replace the concrete walkway, which was very old and cracked and uneven. So Susan greatly expanded the concrete, which not only made for more of a hangout space, but it gave us a place to park the ridiculous oversized trash and recycling bins we’d recently been issued (lower right in this plan), which could be wheeled away and replaced with a chair for parties. Expanding the concrete also got rid of the “bowling alley” effect (or at least reduced it) by making the garden more viewable from various angles, not just front-to-back.

What happened next? I hired fence guys, hired a concrete guy, and hired a guy to make wooden planters. I saw some of his planters at a local garden center and they put me in touch with him. He used to work at one of the mills (this is timber country up here, folks) and had access to second-grade wood at a good price. He made me 13 containers in all, including the raised planter-turned bar you’ll see in a minute.

First, this thing showed up. I picked a warm, natural color called Goldenrod from Brickform. This color was specifically chosen to match a color scheme I’d carefully selected with the help of a local professional who has never steered me wrong. I then rejected the entire color scheme, but only after the concrete was poured and I had applied said scheme to the fence and most of the planters. But more about that in a minute!

Okay, so that happened! Then the fence went up, and I paid someone to paint it a color that I later decided was all wrong. The guy I hired had already moved on to another job and could not come back, so after sensibly paying him to paint so I could do my job and earn the money to pay him, I then had to take a few days off my job and paint over it myself! Yea! This is the wrong color, which was way too bright:

Then the planters arrived, and they had to be primed, except for a few that I intended to stain. I didn’t want the garden to look like a box of crayons–I did want some neutral colors (apart from the greenery, which really does serve as a kind of unifying neutral color). So I intended to stain the wood steps of my porch, the planter/bar, and a couple of other things so we’d have a combination of wood and painted wood.

I thought it would help to set the planters in the garden and just see how they filled the space. That Most Definitely Did Not Help. It terrified me. The whole thing looked like crap and I was getting seriously worried that I’d gotten in over my head. Also, it was taking much longer to paint everything than I’d counted on. And did I mention that my helper was gone? I tried to hire more people at the last minute–didn’t happen. In all, I probably lost about 3 weeks (of time I could have spent doing work and earning a living) to this project. Ouch.

Even seeing my cool planter/bar in place did not help.

Then this happened. I’d been saving bits of Victorian house trim to attach to the planters. My idea was to make the planters feel like they belonged with the house by working in some architectural salvage, and I also thought that I’d paint all the trim a contrasting color, so it would really very much tie into the whole West Coast painted lady thing. But none of the colors were working (I don’t have photos of all the non-working colors, but they were just too bright. The place looked like a garden for toddlers, not for adults drinking gin late at night.) So I kept going back to the paint store and buying darker and darker colors. Finally I ended up with an assortment of colors that looked almost black on the paint chip. One of them was this Glidden Black Bordeaux.

That was it! Then I had it. The trim would be painted the same color as the planter boxes, which reminded me (in a weirdly appealing way) of a creepy old house whose rooms are painted all one dark, intense color, even the trim. There’s something cheap and tawdry about it. I was delighted.

So at that point, I went back to the paint store and got the darkest versions of purple, blue, and burgundy I could find. All of them, I realized, perfectly matched the colors on liquor bottle labels. THIS is what I was going for! It was more French Quarter than northern California. I also picked out a sophisticated pale blue and pale green–think pastis, absinthe, and Chartreuse–as contrasts. I stained the wood the darkest color available, and painted the fence a much more neutral cream/mustard yellow.

Then I borrowed parts of an old copper still from a friend of mine who admits that it looks so good that she might never get it back.

Then the plants arrived, thanks to Log House Plants. (They are a wholesale nursery, by the way, so look for their plants at garden centers, but if you’re wanting to order cocktail garden plants online, instead try Territorial Seed Company, who Log House supplies)

The result:

Lessons Learned
And here are a few more pictures, along with some lessons learned.

First, about the bar. What I did was ask somebody to build me an ordinary raised planter box, but to make it the right height for a bar, which turns out to be 42 inches tall. I had him put boards across part of the planter area so I’d have a place to set drinks in between the plants. The spacing of the boards wasn’t exactly the way I wanted it to be, but the guy who built them for me very carefully glued them in place in addition to using screws, so I wasn’t able to adjust them and they work just fine.

This was taken on the day I planted it — the mint has filled in since then. I added my own trim, which actually came from an amazing local company called Wallace & Hinz that makes custom bars. They sell their odd bits and pieces as scrap, and I found pieces that fit perfectly. I stained it all the darkest wood stain I could find, which turned out to be darker than the barstools I’d already bought — but if you read last week’s post, you’re already getting the idea that none of this went exactly according to plan.

The shelves/vertical planter behind the bar has a very obvious “false front” of Victorian trim. I could have boxed in the sides and made it look more like it was meant to be that way, but I was so burned out by that time–and so very lacking in carpentry skills–that I just screwed that trim onto the shelves, painted it, and called it good. It was mounted onto the fencepost with giant wood screws and L brackets, and I screwed a few horizontal boards into the fence for more lateral support, and then screwed the back of the shelves into those boards.

The idea for a vertical planter behind the bar came from this awesome bar I saw in Montreal:

Can’t you just picture it at night when those shelves are filled with bottles and glassware?

Another thing-and this was Susan Morrison’s idea: These shelves normally hold pots, tools, fertilizer, whatever–but if I have a party, I can just hose the whole thing down and use it for platters and glasses and stuff like that. Nice, huh? The guy who built the planters was like, “You want a bookshelf? Like, a bookshelf? In the garden?” They are just like bookshelves, except there are small spaces between the boards so the whole thing can drain if I hose it down.

What else? Well, I did a pallet planter, only I added house trim to that as well to jazz it up. It sits on concrete blocks to elevate it (hidden pretty well by some agastache I planted in front of it) and is attached to the fencepost with big wood screws. (If you want to know how to do this, I followed Fern Richardson’s instructions.)

Finally, a couple of words about seating. Because we expanded the paved areas, I was able to work in a little seating, even in this narrow, alley-like space. That’s nice because it gives a slightly angled view of the garden–which is not easy in a long, narrow space. Also in this photo, you might see old windows hanging on the wall–I wanted something artsy that could give the garden some height, and I figured I could use the glass to–I don’t know–write cocktail recipes on? Draw silly pictures? You get the idea.

Oh, and I should mention that if the containers are sitting on the ground (instead of on concrete) they have no bottom. That way, they drain really well, and if I plant something deep-rooted, it can actually grow down into real soil if it wants to.

Here’s one more seating photo. This is our nice new pad for garbage cans, but I put the cans away when it’s party time. I actually have a really nice painted bench that fits in that spot, but I can’t seem to find a photo of the bench. So here it is with another chair. You get the idea. Seating.

And the porch got power-washed, cleaned, and sealed. Who knew those grey boards could be this color again? So it’s not really big enough for much seating, but it’s easy enough to move the funky old recycling bins off the porch and put a chair there, too. (Also, below right, you’ll see that I put my Triolife planter on a stand and filled it with cilantro, basil, mint, etc.)

In keeping with the Victorian theme, I even made a vertical planter out of an old wooden medicine cabinet. The mirror had broken and fallen out during the last earthquake, so I stapled chicken wire where the mirror was (inside the cabinet door frame), drilled drainage holes all around and watering holes on top, and planted into it. It’s also attached to the fence with L-brackets, screws going into the post, and an additional chunk of wood I screwed into the post just underneath to help hold it into place. There are also blocks of wood screwed into either side of the fence post so I could attach it in the middle as well. It’s HEAVY!

Okay, that’s it for now! If you’re wondering what I’m growing in this garden, it’s all plants that can somehow be mixed into a drink–with one exception. I didn’t have the heart to throw out an old rhododendron that had been with the house forever. But other than that–every single think is drinkable and mixable! If you’re trying to figure out what that might involve, I’ve got a long list here (click “older entries” at the bottom to see the rest) and most of it is available from Territorial through their Drunken Botanist Plant Collection, and Log House Plants is selling them to West Coast garden centers as well.  Still more about the Drunken Botanist Plant Collection of cocktail-friendly plants can be found here.