Spirits | United States | Matchbook Distilling | Moon Blight Plum Nocino

Moon Blight Plum Nocino

NOTES

From the Matchbook team -

Green walnuts contain multitudes. Our friend Danny Childs has a great essay in Modern Farmer that outlines the history of their use in beverages -- going back to the Celtic Pict tribe that used the walnuts for beverages they believed to hold supernatural powers. They taught this drink to Roman soldiers and the tradition has carried on for millennia. The nocino black walnut amari of Northern Italy and the Liqueur de Noix, walnuts into fortified wine, of France.

Matchbook Distilling Co. is on the other side of town from our home, The Lin Beach House. A beautiful 2 mile cruise through the village or the surrounding neighborhoods bucolic streets, or the long stretch down Moors lane, through the park and past the high school. It's not unusual for us to travel between home and work by bike, taking different paths each time, zig zagging through the neighborhood, and in the peak of summer, dodging green walnuts as you go.

In the Summer of 2020, Valerie (my best friend and summer cellar hand) and I would bike to the distillery, stopping along our ever changing route, filling up our backpacks with the unripe fruit. At the distillery we'd clean them up, cut them in half, and cover them in or botanical distillates.

After a year we pulled 50 gallons of the spirit macerating the walnuts, filtering out the liquid and adding in a slate of botanicals -- palo santo, hoja de santa, damiana, rose hips, cinnamon bark, nutmeg.. - and we let that macerate another year. All botanicals with a rich, storied, romantic and often supernatural use.

Last summer we received a surprise haul of 1000 lbs of damson plumbs from Briermere Farms on the North Road. We pressed them and kicked off the fermentation. Macari dropped off some Pinot Noir fruit, and we had just a bit too much to fit into the wine tank, so we blended it in with the fermenting plums. It was about 75% damson plums x 25% pinot noir. We had a pretty co-ferment going. One day we walked into the distillery and it was peaking - we knew it. We loved it. It was rich and bright. We wanted to fortify it. Stop it in its tracks and hold it in that moment. I couldn't stop thinking about the nocino. The flavors were at once so complimentary and so contrasting. We were just compelled to join them together. And so we pulled the nocino out from its slumber on its bed of botanicals and used it to fortify our plum x pinot noir co-ferment.

And there you have this beautiful little late summer North Fork potion. Rich and tannic and herbal and bright and dark.