A Roselle Figlia Fiore Aperitivo

For the number of home-brewed, naturally fermented, non-alcoholic floral-and-fruity drinks we consume, I sometimes think to myself: we’re on the right trend, but in the wrong country. APM’s Marketplace which, alongside KCRW/NPR’s Good Food, Gastropod, the Memory Palace and such sundry other podcasts have been my listening companions on beach walks for years, has been reporting the rise of non-alcoholic wellness drinks for some time now. Here in India, however, these trends are quite literally foreign. We’re clearly headed in some other direction: alcohol consumption has entirely lost its stigma, bragging about single-malt love with nary a though of how gauche that may sound is commonplace, and drinking is the thing to do if one is young and being truly social. Weed on the side, please.

There’s some hype cycle I suppose we have to rise and fall through to get through this, and all I can say is that when we come out at the other end, this blog and all its posts about flower-colored drinks (red, blue, yellow) and light cocktails, shrubs and sipping vinegars or naturally brewed ginger ales will be ready and waiting.

Meanwhile, I hear that elsewhere, Figlia Fiore is all the rage–“the lushness of Italian gardens and the energy of sidewalk dinners in New York City,” “an ode to the spritz, a token of leisure and a reminder to take your time … for sipping with intention. Not for hangovers” [says this product website]. And what’s this stuff, you’re wondering? Here’s an ingredient list from this other website: “Filtered Water, White Grape Juice Concentrate, Ginger Juice, Lemon Juice, Rose Extract, Rosemary Extract, Natural Elderflower Flavor, Black Currant Juice Concentrate, Chamomile Extract, Ginseng Root, Lemon Balm Extract, Bitter Orange Rind, Fruit & Vegetables Extract.”

Hmm, I’m thinking, all that for a profile that is “floral, bitter, aromatic” when you get these things and maybe more simply by fermenting Cassia fistula/Indian Laburnum petals or even mangosteen fruits and peels. Or, sans the bitters, as I’m about to suggest, by simply working with rosella calyces. Rosella calyces come from the wild Hibiscus Sabdariffa, also known as zobo or fleur de Jamaica. Fermented, they produce this stunningly and vibrantly red liquid which fizzes naturally and plentifully, and is tart enough to dress as a cosmopolitan (with vodka, Cointreau, and a squeeze of lime; skip the cranberry juice) or use as the base for any cocktail of your imagination (think: Prosecco, vodka or bourbon, a dash of bitters maybe), and looks a more daring, brilliant red than anything artificially colored in that Figlia bottle.

Figlia Fiore means something like “flower child,” and what could be more flower child than the derivatives of actual flowers and petals and calyces–nothing else added but sugar, and that just enough to kick-start a natural fermentation?

This drink is nothing new to Aurovillians who brew it as a “roselle wine” because it feels a little like one. It’s tart but beautifully and surprisingly delicate, with fruity hints that are like recollections or impressions of some faraway summer stone fruit, Georgia peaches maybe or Bosc pears, though peaches and pears are the last things to grow around these parts. No lushness of an Italian garden, but all the wildness of an Indian one and the energy of dinners on Auroville roadsides for sure. No Campari-like bitters here (you have to add those if you want), but good, old-fashioned shrub-like refreshment. As an aperitivo (aperitif) all on its own, however, it’s really beyond all compare.

I have in the past, cooked the roselles to prepare the syrup, sometimes even with other sours like rhubarb. Mistake, mistake, mistake. Wild things call for wild fermentation. Cooking is just a waste of time when you can get to the heart of them with just patience and some sugar.

Maybe some markets sell roselles, though mine are usually from our garden where the bushes come on their own–who knows from where? But one day there they are, gifts of a season of gusty rainstorms which churned the air and swirled the soil, putting forth red stalks tall as beanpoles that promise adventure though they never wanted to be climbed, would only hide those who walked amidst them.

The tall red stalks are dotted in daytimes by the creamiest white blossoms with deep red centers which turn pucker-faced pink come evening, as though the plant partook of its own sourness and couldn’t but wrinkle. Indeed, the locals call the leaves of this plant which stretch like the fingers of an opened hand puliccha keerai: sour greens. If you have these in dal, you don’t need lemon or tamarind as the leaves are tart enough, and other locals in other parts call them gongura and cook them with garlic and chillies into a pickle that is a splendid regional delicacy. A puliccha pacchadi, if you were to join the two far-flung local terms for alliterative effect: a sour chutney, though the translation makes it unforgivably banal.

Then there are the rosellas which are also like fingers but held like a Bharatanatyam dancer’s depiction of a flower about to bloom—mere calyces formed after the pucker-face blossoms have fallen off to hold a seed case in a somewhat prickly embrace. True, the rosellas never want to be picked. They’re tightly held and will bother your fingers with unpleasant little bristles, so you must use a scissors to cut through.

“What do you do with these?” asked my lady of the mountain (true, for that is her name). Jams, I said, chutneys, salads, teas. She laughed as though she knew these would be my answers, but they weren’t the right ones. Meanwhile, forest creatures nibble away at the roselles, so I must bargain to get any before the pods mature. Then they all disappear, the lush forest gone as mysteriously as it appeared, leaving behind spindly stalks to disperse seeds—a promise of return that you must trust with surety though it carries no sureties at all. What do you do with these? The question echoes. Take them as they come and love them as they go, I guess. What more?

I guard what roselles I have preciously, layer them with sugar in large glass jars, macerate a day or two, and then fill with water barely to meet the level of the by-now-collapsed calyces.

Leave them alone again, and when the liquid turns a beautiful, deep red, strain out and bottle my very own, very wild Figlia Fiore, truly from flowers that arrive in the garden. The bottled liquid shows no sign of activity, but that is misleading, for in about a week it’s ready to pop–and pop it does, naturally fizzed. All it needs is a little ice, or not, if the bottle is chilled before opening.

Roselle Figlia Fiore Aperitivo

This is a wild fermented roselle aperitif, tart, fruity, delicate; naturally fizzy and every bit an answer to commercially made Figlia Fiore. It can be poured over ice with a little seltzer added if it’s lost its natural fizz or used a base for other cocktails if you so desire.

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Ingredients

  

• 3-4 cups cleaned roselles
• 10-15 tablespoons white sugar

Instructions

 

• Layer the roselles in a large, clean glass jar, using about 2-3 tablespoons of sugar for each cup of roselles. Shake the jar and set it on a spot on your kitchen counter that’s out of direct sunlight.
• Shake the jar daily to distribute the sugars and later the syrup that starts to emerge. After 2-3 days, the calyces should have collapsed considerably. Fill the jar with water to barely the same level as the calyces. Less is also ok. Re-cap and leave back on the counter.
• At this point you don’t have to mix daily, but keep an eye on the jar and burp it if you feel the need. You can add a tablespoon of sugar every other day or so if you don’t see enough bubbling or signs of fermentation.
• In about a week to 10 days, the liquid should have turned a vivid red. Now strain the liquid—taste it, it should be tart and not overly sweet—and transfer to a clean swing-top bottle. Do not fill the bottle right to the top; use two bottles filled halfway if you must, though with this recipe you will likely have only a single half bottle anyway. (Save the mushy calyces to make jam or puree and use in place of rhubarb in a cake.)
• Leave this bottle out, undisturbed, for another week or so. How fast it fizzes up now depends on ambient temperatures where you are; it took me about 5-6 days to get the proper pop and fizz that you see. Shaking the bottle ever-so-gently should bring forth bubbles—that’s a good sign. Don’t test by burping or opening or you’ll lose the fizz each time and will have to double your wait-time for it to re-fizz.
• A day ahead of when you want to “uncork” your roselle figlia fiore, refrigerate it. Be sure not to disturb the bottle too much before you open it!
• This roselle figlia fiore is really a shrub, and is very good on its own (chilled) or served over ice. It needs nothing more, but you can play with adding other ingredients as you wish.