One of the plants that has been in my "to go" list is a bitter orange tree-let (Poncirus trifoliata) because it is a mass of twisted thorny branches planted in an awkward spot that served no purpose in the garden that I could tell. I may have to reassess that opinion. I've ignored the plant all summer, intending to dig it up this fall when it's not so miserable hot, and then a few days ago I found it had produced fruit, seven or eight small, fuzzy, fragrant fruit. The fragrance is odd: citrusy, medicinal and borderline janitorial all at the same time. Not conventionally pleasant but somehow still compelling.
The little oranges sat on my counter for a few days making the kitchen smell peculiar. Their uses are limited, it seems, so I thought I'd try infusing them into vodka. I dug through one of the last unpacked boxes for our small liquor stash, but no vodka. There was a bottle of white rum, though. I sliced the little buggers as thinly as their zillion seeds would allow, dumped everything into a jar, added some whole allspice and dried ginger bits because they smelled good together with the oranges, and filled the jar with the rum. Let's see what happens, and whether this plant is a keeper after all...
(ETA I'll add a photo when I can figure out how to make Blogger cooperate with my Mac. Also, the fruit is resinous as hell. Getting my knife, the bowl and the cutting mat clean took some serious elbow grease and a lot of full strength dish detergent. I had to toss the sponge afterward.)
(2nd ETA: The experiment was a total fail. It looked cool but when I opened the jar up after a few days of infusing, the "janitorial" smell had gone from borderline to OMFG. My garbage disposal smelled great for a few days though. Looks like the plant it going back on the list of plants to dig up.)
