A much loved Northern colleague of mine had mentioned a cherry liqueur that he had experienced in Portugal. He raved about it. Whilst I judged his experience of pies to be exemplary, I had only taken a mild note of this. I am writing this tongue in cheek of course as I know he will read this and enjoy the northern/southern banter.
Realistically, I of course took total notice, and whilst his request to bring him back a bottle in our air plane hold luggage filled me with sticky smashing horror, I promised our next visit in our much safer ferry boarded camper van would hold true. It turns out that, following his lead, our next stash wouldn't just hold one bottle for my mate Mark, but would also involve a stash for us too.
Upon arrival in Portugal, and whilst drifting from the vast and wonderful array of Portuguese wines, I found the very thing he had suggested. Why not investigate at least I thought? After all, it was Christmas, the season of naughty, stickiness. Well, thanks Mark, that's another addiction started.
The liqueur in question is called Ginjinha, or for short ginja, and despite the name, doesn't contain any ginger at all! Ginja berries are basically sour cherries, which are infused in alcohol (distilled from sugar cane), before sugar is added. I suppose it is almost the same kind of process as making sloe gin? Either way, at first sip we were smitten.
It is usually enjoyed by the small glass with an added benefit of including one of the cherries from the bottle to suck on at the end. We had however also read on the bottle when we purchased it that it can be decadently sipped from little chocolate pots too. A swift search around the supermarket, with what we thought was not much chance of finding vegan chocolate pots, led to amazement as we found some dark chocolate cups of delight!
Not partaking in Christmas pudding, mince pies or any of that seasonal malarkey this year, I had decided to order something different and found it in the form of some vegan baklava. I packed this in my bag and only revealed this to Phil once we had arrived in Portugal. It seemed that a piece here and there on the side was a perfect accompaniment to our chocolate pot full of ginja. What an absolute treat!
So for a different sweet treat, we do indeed highly recommend both the baklava and the ginja, especially sipped from chocolate pots! Thanks Mark for the original tip off.
It is usually enjoyed by the small glass with an added benefit of including one of the cherries from the bottle to suck on at the end. We had however also read on the bottle when we purchased it that it can be decadently sipped from little chocolate pots too. A swift search around the supermarket, with what we thought was not much chance of finding vegan chocolate pots, led to amazement as we found some dark chocolate cups of delight!
Not partaking in Christmas pudding, mince pies or any of that seasonal malarkey this year, I had decided to order something different and found it in the form of some vegan baklava. I packed this in my bag and only revealed this to Phil once we had arrived in Portugal. It seemed that a piece here and there on the side was a perfect accompaniment to our chocolate pot full of ginja. What an absolute treat!
So for a different sweet treat, we do indeed highly recommend both the baklava and the ginja, especially sipped from chocolate pots! Thanks Mark for the original tip off.
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