It is blackberry season in the Pacific Northwest. In fact, up in Washington they are not just abundant, they are a Class C Noxious Weed. I often joke that the summers are so idyllic in Washington that even the invasive species bears delicious fruit.
According to the Washington State Noxious Weed Control Board:
It is a notorious invasive species in many countries around the world and costs millions of dollars for both control and in estimated impacts. This species spreads aggressively and has severe negative impacts to native plants, wildlife and livestock.
Up here, these massive shrubs encroach on the sides of roads, reaching out with their angry, thick, thorny stems, tangling with native plants and overtaking hiking trails. They also produce a lot of sweet, delicate, tender berries. If you wait to pick them until they are soft to the point of near-collapse, you will be rewarded with truly outstanding fruit.
My kids have become expert blackberry pickers, navigating their tiny fingers through that sharp, prickly web, then harvesting and eating a metric ton juicy drupelets. It got me thinking of what else to do with this fruity excess. We could make ice cream, or clafoutis, but after my stunned reaction to the raspberry lemonade at Burgerville, I had Blackberry Lemonade on the brain.
I texted my friend, acclaimed chef and author Joshua McFadden — who also happens to have developed the raspberry lemonade at Burgerville.
“As you are now a lemonade expert,” I texted him, “I’d love your advice. Is the idea to just macerate the berries in sugar then whisk them into lemon juice and water?”
“That is the idea, yes,” he wrote back. “Very easy.”
But it did occur to me that blackberries are a bit heartier than blueberries, and have harder seeds. Many recipes online recommended making a simple syrup, then blending the berries and straining them to keep out any seeds. But blackberries are high in fiber, and straining would take some of that away.
As I am both Fiber Dad and Blender Dad, I figured that I could do everything in one big blender, skipping the heating and chilling of a simple syrup, and also keeping all of the fiber. By blending the blackberries and sugar first, then allowing them to sit and macerate, they naturally combine into a delicious, thick blackberry syrup. After that, you simply blend it with lemon juice and water and you have a frothy, delicious Blackberry Lemonade that is outstanding and simple — almost creamy in its airiness, both sweet and tart, served over a generous mound of ice.
The kids and I took a long forest walk, and I dangled the promise of Blackberry Lemonade as a reward for, “anyone who doesn’t ask to be carried during the walk.” It worked — even Ethan, still just 2 1/2 years old, did the full, long, hilly walk with no requests for help. Surprise, surprise: the kids loved the lemonade. Even my wife (who like me is not a sweet beverage person), found it to be dangerously good.
It felt like I was writing a fantasy of childhood: “The children ambled and galloped through the canopied forest, clambering up a large, steep hill. Afterward, we picked wild Himalayan blackberries, then macerated the berries in sugar and turned them into a large, frosty pitcher of spumescent, sweet-tart blackberry lemonade…”
With that…
makes about 9 cups
Ingredients
2 cups ripe blackberries (about 300 grams)
1 1/2 cups sugar (about 300 grams)
1 1/2 cups freshly squeezed lemon juice (from about 7 lemons)
6 cups water
ice
Directions
Place the blackberries and sugar in the jar of a blender, then blend until mostly broken up — about 5 seconds. Cover the blender and allow the mixture to macerate and form a blackberry syrup. Basically, let it sit for at least 30 minutes and up to 2 hours. (You can go for up to 24 hours, but you’ll want to put it in the fridge if you’re going longer than 2 hours.)
Add the lemon juice. If you have a large enough blender, add the water as well.
Blend until frothy and the seeds are all blended. (If your blender isn’t big enough, transfer the lemon blackberry-lemon mixture to a pitcher and then stir in the water.)
Store covered in the refrigerator. Stir before serving, then pour over a generous amount of ice and enjoy.
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