FEBRUARY JUICE BOX
Hello Friends! Thank you for joining us as we continue our adventure with our second monthly Juicebox Box! In this Box you will find an array of fermented foods and juice, using processes and ingredients we are falling in love with & diving into, as well as art from our local artist friends. As we continue forward with our “CSA”, we aim to showcase our community - whether that be through highlighting local chefs or bakers, or by using local artists and crafters. Highlighted in this Box is art by several different local artists, who we hope you enjoy and support as well. Below are some notes on our ingredients & the fermentation process of each product in your Box, so you can feel free to explore particular products or processes yourself and try ‘em out! Thank you for your support and curiosity, we hope you enjoy & learn with us! Remember to tag us in your creations so we can learn from you as well! Cheers!
THE FOOD
BLACK RAISIN CHUTNEY
We’re back again using one of our FAVORITE techniques we’ve been exploring over here. Similar to the process of making black garlic, here we have taken golden raisins and held them at 140* F for three months. This process enables the sugars in the raisins to caramelize over a long period of time, creating quite this amazing little black fruit. From here, we make a take on a classic Indian style tamarind chutney using two year lacto-fermented garlic, homemade vegetable shoyu, and a fermented lemon syrup left over from our Valentine’s Day event.
*how to use: honestly, order (or make) some Indian food and put this on top. Use some naan and scoop it up! get wild! refrigerate after opening
LACTO PEPPER & KOJI CURRY
We love our koji over here. Essentially, at it’s core, koji is a spore used to break down starches and turn them to sugar, but this road is full of stops from protein to sugar. Here we use it to unlock some really gorgeous flavors in this curry. Using a three year wheat miso, lacto-fermented jalapenos & long peppers, and fresh koji, we build a pretty traditional Thai style curry, adding in salted and aged coconut milk, more of our homemade shoyu, dates, mushroom powder, and some of our favorite brines left over from along the way.
*how to use: we recommend eating this with roasted potatoes and vegetables. It is designed to bring life and flavor to simple vegetarian cuisine, so go crazy. keep refrigerated.
FERMENTED CARA CARA CURRY
Another take on Thai style curry, this time using Oyster River’s Morphos Rose Pet-Nat (a sparkling merlot from Maine) and aged cara cara oranges. These are fortified with sweet shiro miso, orange syrup, and thai aromatics, namely: lemongrass, ginger, shallots, and garlic. We then added in more two year fermented garlic, an orange peel shoyu, pickled ginger and shallots, and preserved lemons from our larder.
*how to use: chef likes to bake fingerling potatoes, submerged in salt, and then dump this curry on the taters with a little fresh lemon. definitely a win. keep refrigerated.
CULTURED KOJI & PLUM BUTTER
Fresh koji is used to culture cream, which is then spun into butter and mixed with our homemade umeboshi. Ume is a Japanese plum that is pickled in a salt to create umeboshi - the beautifully salty sour goodness that flavors your butter!
*how to use: honestly, just spread this shit on some toast with a little jam. or use it to finish sauces, or really however you see fit! keep refrigerated
THE JUICE
ANYWHERE IS.
Here is a SUPER romantic and beautiful Juice that we’re real proud of!
Inspired of course by the incredible Enya song, which was played on repeat during bottling day.
Here is a blend of cortland, fuji, mcintosh, & gala apples from Shelburne Farms in MA, pressed and blended with Red Fire Farms husk cherries, and locally foraged concord grapes!
The apples were all fermented with native yeasts and left on their skins for a month before pressing. These scraps from the cider were then rehydrated with water and left in an open container to create our yeast starter for the husk cherries, which we pressed and covered in apple scrap yeast. Three weeks later the husk cherries and scraps were pressed and the juice was racked into glass where it aged 4 months. The concords were foraged, destemmed, and pressed immediately into a carboy where they were spontaneously fermented. After two weeks the concord juice was racked into glass where it aged 4 months.
All these juices were blended and bottled immediately, left to age another two weeks in bottle before this release. Label art by the multi-talented Jamaal Bonnette @connflique
VERMOUTH ROSSO
Here’s one that we’ve been making and developing for several years, but is always super enjoyable. Our sweet vermouth is made by infusing and aromatizing wine leftover from service, building a flavor profile, and fortifying it. Our key ingredients: foraged wormwood, gentian root, and burdock root, add the bitterness, while aromatics like juniper, thyme, fennel, coriander, anise, cardamom, and lemon peel, create the layers of flavors beneath.
We infuse our wine for three days before straining out all of our aromatics and bittering agents. These are then used to make a viscous syrup which we mix back into the infused wine, before cutting with more leftover wine and fortifying with grain alcohol. The result is a bittersweet rosso vermouth, which can be used to drink neat or subbed into your favorite cocktail calling for sweet vermouth. Label art by the amazing Sam Stillman ( @missmishhmash)
Refrigerate after opening!
THE ART
Original logo art and COMMUNITY postcard by Karissa Regan of Rissky.Studio
check their art out at @rissky.studio on instagram
Box label made by Jamie Andrade of BlackEvergreen Design
find her art at www.JamieAndrade.com or @artistandrade on instagram
Anywhere Is label art made by Jamaal Bonnette
check out his poetry & art at www.the29thbarry.com or @connflique on instagram
Vermouth Rosso label made by Sam Stillman
find her collages at @missmishhmash on instagram
Thanks for joining us! Tag us with your creations at @juiceboxferments on Instagram, and tag all the local artists to help spread their art and creations!
We look forward to learning from you as you from us!