I think the first question is: What the hell is a gooseberry? Right? These odd little suckers pop up every so often with no rhyme or reason. Bright orange balls that most avoid because they’re foreign and taste strange. Hey, we like that. How to use them? Look no further, your friendly neighborhood aging bartender has the answer for you.

Except the answer isn’t always so easy. There’s different types of gooseberries. So if you’re in England right now you’re probably scratching your head wondering what the hell I’m yammering on about. Yup, some look more like grapes and are related to currants but the ones I’m accustomed to seeing here at the farmer’s market are like husk cherries, and related to tomatillos. These, orange, pictured below, are actually called cape gooseberries, A.K.A. Peruvian ground cherries and were a New World product originating in South America.

They taste acidic and a bit cherry tomato-ish, not sweet at all, own a slight tropical note, and have weird little edible seeds inside. They also have that stickiness on their tough skin (under the husk) like a tomatillo, a chemical known as a withanolide which is a natural pesticide of sorts. No worries, it washes right off.

Now you could put a couple of these suckers in a tin and muddle ’em right up and then shake with? I don’t know, mezcal probably. I can see a place like Cantina OK! Using them quite well. I’ve got one muddled drink currently under the belt right now so I’m good but if I had to riff spontaneously right here and now I’d say a couple of cape gooseberries, some mez, maybe a dash of dry vermouth and an egg white for some sort of Socal Clover Club type of thing? That’s all I can think of at the moment.

Whenever I come across a strange, fleeting ingredient, the best thing to do with it is usually a punch because I don’t know when I’ll see these guys again.

Yes, clarified milk punch is horribly overdone but that doesn’t make it any less delicious. We do it so we can have something on the menu to just pour over a BFR, and let me tell you, it’s wondrous to be able to do this. I’m not a huge batcher type, I still believe bartenders have to exert some elbow grease lest they just become weird sci-fi summer camp counselors to drunken adults (not sure if that made any sense).

I’m pretty sure this is the recipe:

2 cups White Rum

1 cup Cherry Creme de Noyaux (uncut by sugar this particular batch being 151 proof)

1 cup Dark Rum

2 cups strong Thai Tea/Earl Grey Tea

3.5 cups Milk

1 cup Cape Gooseberry Syrup

1.5 cups Leftover Lime Juice

.5 cup Orange Juice

.5 cup Creme de Banana

20 Dashes Orange Bitters

A dash of goosfraba.

Add all the ingredients together except for the milk, stir well, then add the milk. Some heat the milk, some do not. I do not. Some even say to add the punch to the milk and not the other way around. In my experience it matters little. Cover and allow to sit overnight, then strain. The straining part will be the hardest unless you’re lucky enough to own a good centrifuge. If you want to do it the old fashioned way it will either take an hour or two days. Yeah. I’ve got a great way to do it but it’d be hard to explain without pictures.

And the goosfraba? Well, it’s a word used by the indigenous peoples of Alaska to help their children calm down (according to a few online sources). It’s also a big part of the movie Anger Management with Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson.

Here you go, check it out if you’ve got seven minutes to spare.