Honeyberry Bonanza

Here's how it all began...

"How many honeyberries would it take to make a batch of wine?" said my friends who were at the time overwhelmed by masses of honeyberries hanging from their tall, overladen honeyberry bushes.

"I'd need about 15 pounds," I said. "What are honeyberries anyhow?"

So, here's what I learned about honeyberries from my friends. They bloom really early and the blossoms are quite frost hardy. The berries arrive early in the season, make good jam and are pretty tart.  They're purple, elongated globes with very small seeds and we have millions of them!!!

I also looked them up on Wikipedia and learned that their Latin name is Lonicera caerulea and that honeyberries are a honeysuckle deciduous shrub native throughout the cool temperate Northern Hemisphere (in other words, home sweet home).

A few days later my friends arrived with a pail of honeyberries.  "These are for you to do whatever you want," they said.  "We'll bring you some more for wine in a day or two."  And they did - three more pails, each weighing 7 pounds!  Wow! Thank-you to my good friends! So I put 15 pounds in the freezer (freezing the fruit helps extract the juice) and the rest in a big pot on the stove.

Now "honeyberry" is a bit of a misnomer because honey is not the first thing that strikes your mind when you pop one in your mouth.  They have a grape-like texture and a bit of a bite. But additional sugar, a little more than I use for rhubarb juice (which is 1 cup/litre for a concentrate that with added water makes 2 litres of very refreshing juice - a summer time favourite here), and the result was yummmmmy!  I strained off the pulp and bottled the juice for syrup, but the pulp still looked pretty good so I decided to try for fruit leather.  I simmered the pulp for a short time with some added honey, pressed it into a thin (less than 1/4 inch) layer on 2 cookie sheets on top of some parchment paper, and baked it for hours and hours at the lowest setting on my oven (170F).  I finally decided it was never going to lose its stickiness so I took it out, left it on the parchment, cut it into strips, and rolled up my leather.  Talk about delicious!  I'm storing it in the fridge, since I have no idea how long it will keep, and giving pieces to everyone that comes by.

Now I'm torn. I was planning on getting another black current bush for my berry garden but honeyberries may be a better choice. The black currents have been sporadic producers and I haven't had a lot of luck with them (ahhh but I love black current jam!).  It may be time to dig up and replace some non or poor producers in my berry garden. Next year....

Will be making the wine soon and when it's done, if it's tasty, I'll share the recipe.