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SPIRITS OF THE FOREST
Lake Tahoe resident revives a pine schnapps tradition.
WRITTEN BY LAURA READ
PHOTOS BY CHRIS HOLLOMAN
Every winter, Alenka Vrecek offers some of her friends a potent, drinkable gift: a home-bottled pine schnapps she’s made from a closely guarded family recipe. Pine schnapps doesn’t appeal to everyone. It is not especially sweet like its distilled, often sugary, schnapps cousins that are sold in stores. Rather, its flavor is sharp, its pungency as fresh as the aroma that snaps up from your skin when you crush a pine needle between your fingers. Its enjoyment requires an acquired taste.
American schnapps drinks combine grain spirits and fruit flavors or syrups made from ingredients such as aniseed, cherry, mint, banana, and peach. European schnapps are distilled from fermented fruit and made with little or no sugar. In Vrecek’s pine schnapps, the sweetness remains in the background. The forefront flavors are pure evergreen. The ingredients come straight from the forest, where Vrecek, who lives in Carnelian Bay, travels by cross-country skis every spring to harvest the young tree needles.
“I always look for the first signs, when the new shoots start to emerge,” she says. “I like to pick the smallest, youngest, freshest ones from the smaller pine trees.”
It’s a tradition she’s continued from when she was a little girl in Slovenia, picking wild edible plants with her grandparents.
“One of my fondest memories is of smelling my hands after we picked the young pine offshoots,” she says. “The chemical composition of pine schnapps is very complex. There are more than 55 flavor compounds. It has the flavor characteristic of Lapsang Souchong, which is a black tea cured with pinewood smoke.”
Compound Expert
Vrecek is an expert in the chemical compounds of plant extractions. In 2010, she launched Tahoe Teas, a new line of gourmet loose-leaf teas now sold in Whole Foods Market in Reno, New Moon Natural Foods in Truckee and Tahoe City, and other markets. She spent months looking for just the right brew blends, studying and tasting mixes of more than 50 organic ingredients, varying from cocoa nibs to blueberries.
While the tea ingredients are purchased from a variety of quality organic suppliers in California and the West Coast before being blended at Lake Tahoe and packaged in decorative bags for the market, the schnapps endures a lengthy incubation on Vrecek’s sunny back deck.
“You layer jars with a finger-width of sugar, then continue with a layer of the pine tops,” Vrecek says. “Press down and alternate until the jar is packed full. Close the jar tightly and place it in the sun. I turn the jars upside down every few days. The pine tips will brown over time, but you can cover the jars with black plastic to keep them bright green.”
Essentials oils are extracted in the process, and they melt into the sugar.
When the syrup is ready, to make the schnapps, she soaks the now sugar-infused pine buds in fruit schnapps or vodka.
“I am omitting a few family secrets in this process,” she says. “My grandpa usually made it with schnapps distilled from apples, pears, and plums, which grew in his garden.”
Achieving a 42-percent to 45-percent proof alcohol, the drink has punch. It’s also good for you, Vrecek says.
“Both the syrup and schnapps are used as remedies for coughs and colds and to improve mood,” she says. “Pine needles are high in vitamin C and A, [and] extremely high in antioxidants and beta carotene, which is needed for healthy vision, skin, and red blood cells.”
Friends lucky enough to appreciate the schnapps (the drink isn’t currently for sale; it’s only given as gifts) often get a nip of it at ice skating outings and around campfires on backcountry ski trips. Anyone jonesing for a recipe has been less lucky. Vrecek has been secretive about sharing. Read more about Vrecek and her other potent blends at http://www.Tahoeteas.com.
Laura Read lives in Tahoe City and writes for VIA, the San Francisco Chronicle, and other publications. She’s a social media writer for Soundslides audio slideshow software. See more of her work at http://www.Readwriteshoot.com.
Make-your-own Slovenian Pine Schnapps
(Courtesy of the Art Center in Prekmurje, Slovenia. For details, visit http://www.Artcenter-slovenia.blogspot.com/2011/11/pine-syrup-pine-schnapps-sirup-iz.html)
Pine tops (the bunches of fresh needles that grow at the end of branches in spring)
White sugar
Clean glass jars or bottles with tops
Gauze or another clean fabric for filtering
Store-bought or homemade schnapps
Pour about a ¼-inch-thick layer of sugar in the bottom of the jars. Cover with a blanket of pine tops. Layer more sugar, then more pine tops, alternating until the jars are full. Close the jars, and then cover them with black plastic to keep out them green.
The jars will need to sit for at least 40 days (the longer the better). The longer you leave the jars, the greater quantity of essential oil will be extracted from the pine needles.
As the sugar melts, the pine top concoction may settle. Add more pine tops and sugar to keep the jar full.
After several weeks, filter the syrup into small jars or bottles. Store in a cool, dry place.
Place the remaining sugary pine tops into clean jars, and fill the jars with a mixed fruit schnapps, completely covering the needles. The more pine tips in the jars, the stronger the pine taste will be in the finished product. Let them sit and mix for as long as you can wait!
