Are you astonished by the sudden jump in price of fresh blueberries?

That’s because blueberry season is over. But there is a substitute: dried blueberries. Use them in and on:

 
Make a blueberry trail mix snack with the recipe below. You can also use it to top desserts and cereal.
 
RECIPE: BLUEBERRY TRAIL MIX

Ingredients For 4 Cups

1. COMBINE the blueberries, walnuts, pretzels, granola and any optional ingredients in a large bowl. Toss to blend.

2. STORE in an airtight container, but consume within a week.
 
Find more blueberry recipes at BlueberryCouncil.org.
  

 
We far prefer the heft and sizzle of ginger beer to the more pallid ginger ale.

You can buy ginger beer in grocery stores, or you can easily make your own. Here’s a shortcut recipe from Chef Jamie Oliver, no fermenting required.

Ginger beer goes well with all spicy or highly-seasoned foods, as well as foods with sweet glazes and sauces, like barbecue or glazed ham. Find recipes below.

Below:

> Why call a drink a mule?

> Ginger beer vs. ginger ale: the difference.

> Cooking with ginger beer.
 
 
Elsewhere on The Nibble:

> The history of ginger beer.

> The history of ginger.

> The year’s 11 ginger-related holidays.

> The year’s 40+ beer holidays.

> The year’s 24 non-alcoholic beverage holidays (including juice and soft drinks).

> The year’s 50+ cocktail and spirits holidays.
 
 
WHY CALL A DRINK A MULE?

Mule and buck are old names for mixed drinks made with ginger ale or ginger beer, plus citrus juice. They can be made with any base liquor.

Some experts claim that a Buck is made with ginger ale, while a Mule uses the spicier ginger beer.

Why buck? Why mule? That answer is lost to history, but here’s a detailed discussion.

A bit of cocktail history: The Moscow Mule was invented in 1941 by John C. Hublein, importer of the than-not-well-known-or-popular Smirnof vodka. Here’s the history

A Dark ‘n’ Stormy is traditionally made with Gosling’s Black Seal rum. Ginger beer was brought to the Caribbean by the English colonists, and full-bodied dark rum was first made by the Gosling family in 1860. It wasn’t a big jump to combine the two (one historian notes that Bermuda is only 20 square miles).
 
 
GINGER BEER VS. GINGER ALE: THE DIFFERENCE

The main differences between today’s ginger beer and ginger ale are the sweetness and spiciness. Ginger beer is less sweet than ginger ale and has a sizzling ginger kick. The spicier ginger beer provides a bite to cocktails, while the lighter ginger ale provides more sweetness and effervescence.

Historically, both were fermented. Today only ginger beer is fermented, a reason for the higher price. Here’s more about fermented soft drinks.

According to an enlightening article by Bill Norris, mass-produced ginger-based soft drinks began to appear in the U.S. by the mid-1800s. Back then, the ginger flavoring extract was aged in oak barrels for four years before use!

Ginger ale was the most popular soft drink in the U.S. until the 1930s (Coca-Cola first was bottled for distribution in 1899 more).

These early ginger ales were closer to what we now call ginger beer, described as “powerfully spicy.”

[2] Gosling’s Ginger Beer is our go-to. There are Caribbean brands that are stronger if you want an even bigger hit of ginger (photos #2 and #4 © Gosling’s

[3] Fresh ginger root gives good ginger beer its zing (photo © Good Eggs).

[4] Avoid refined sugar and save calories with Gosling’s Stormy Diet Ginger Beer. It’s sweetened with sucralose and acesulfame potassium. Stormy is the name of the seal mascot. The ginger beer is also available in the conventional sugar-sweetened form.

 
 
COOKING WITH GINGER BEER

Create a spicy, lightly sweet sauce for meat and poultry with a base of ginger beer. Try:

 

[5] Ginger Beer-Glazed Butternut Squash With Gremolata. Here’s the recipe (photo © Christopher Testani | New York Times).
 

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A glass of sweet red vermouth with an orange slice or twist was long a fashionable apéritíf for café society*. In Barcelona today, vermouth and tapas are a hot duo after mass, both at home and at the vermuterías that have popped up to serve them.

Today’s tip is to try a bit of café society at home. Turn it into a brunch or cocktail party with tapas. Use the occasion to get to know vermouth, trying the different styles.

You don’t have to try them all in one day. We’ve turned our monthly Sunday friends-and-family brunch into a vermouth and tapas event, trying different vermouths and tapas each week. So it doesn’t get burdensome, participants are assigned to bring a bottle (for those who don’t cook) and a variety of tapas (for those who do).

> Check out the tapas below, and have a great time!

> National Vermouth Day is March 21st.

> World Tapas Day is the third Thursday of June.

> The year’s 49 cocktail holidays.

> The year’s 11 Spanish food holidays celebrated in the U.S.
 
 
A BRIEF HISTORY OF VERMOUTH

Vermouth evolved from a 16th-century practice in Northern Italy and Germany, where apothecaries would blend extracts of herbs and roots with wine and brandy. This was the way to make bitter medicines more palatable. (Virtually all spirits were first developed for medicinal reasons.)

The original recipe for red vermouth, and possibly even the name “vermuth,” was invented in Torino, Italy in 1786 by Antonio Benedetto Carpano. The red vermouths of subsequent producers like Cinzano were based on Carpano. Carpano is still a major brand in Italy, perhaps best known today in the U.S. for its Punt e Mes (“Point And A Half”), a sweet and bitter style.

In the late 19th century, bartenders began to make cocktails with vermouth. The Manhattan and Negroni, made with sweet vermouth, and the Martini, made with dry vermouth, are three that remain popular today. A plain glass of sweet vermouth is still enjoyed as an apéritif in Italy, France, and Spain, the three largest producing countries.

[1] An apéritif of red vermouth (photos #1 and #3 © Foods From Spain).

[2] A selection of delicious tapas (photo © Maddi Bazzocco | Unsplash).

While many vermouths are regional and not imported, familiar names in the U.S. include:

 
Other countries have gotten on the vermouth bandwagon. There are a number of American brands (Atsby, Gallo, Imbue, Ransom, Sutton Cellars, Vya from Quady), along with vermouths from Australia, Germany and elsewhere.

> Here’s more about vermouth.

[3] Trade the Mimosa and omelet brunch for vermouth with tortilla española and other tapas.

[4] Boquerones, white Spanish anchovies. Boquerones and anchovies are the same types of fish, but anchovies are heavily salted and boquerones are not (photo © Pasta Eater | NYC).

In Barcelona, the trendy food capital of Europe, vermouth is now the midday fashion on weekends.

It’s called “la hora del vermout” (vermouth hour, after “cocktail hour”): good food and drink, good conversation, a good time hanging out with friends and family.

It’s easy to create your own “la hora del vermout” for brunch or an all-vermouth-and-tapas cocktail party.
 
 
EASY TAPAS

 
For brunch, add a green salad, with fruit salad for dessert (you can marinate the fruits in a bit of sweet vermouth or orange liqueur). If someone wants to make flan, by all means!

Here’s what the menu at a tapas bar looks like.

We promise, you’ll love this new approach to brunch and/or cocktails.

Many Americans recoil at the thought of anchovies, tough, bristly and way too salty. But these are cheap anchovies, typically served by diners and pizzerias. You must try fine Spanish anchovies—practically another species.

Tender Spanish anchovies and boquerones, white anchovies, are imported canned and available fresh in May and June.

They are a classic Spanish tapa. Boquerones are lightly pickled in vinegar and olive oil. Lightly salted and smoked anchovies are only distantly related to the over-salted anchovies too many of us have had.

They are truly delicious, typically served with bread and butter.

Try them: La Tienda is an importer of fine Spanish foods, and the photos of anchovies on their website will change your mind, even before the first bite.
 
_______________________

*Café society was the precursor of the jet set, and what more recently has been called the “beautiful people.” Beginning in the late 19th century, these wealthy individuals and celebrities gathered in fashionable cafés and restaurants in New York, Paris, and London. As a social group, they attended each others’ private dinners and balls, vacationed at the same elegant resorts, and so forth. In New York City, café society would hang out at El Morocco, the 21 Club and the Stork Club. American journalist Lucius Beebe (1902-1966) is generally credited with creating the term “café society” in his weekly column in the New York Herald Tribune, which ran in the 1920s and 1930s.
 
 

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For a long time, National Lobster Day was celebrated on June 15th. But according to The Boston Globe, on August 5th, National Lobster Day was officially declared by Congress to take place on September 25th.

Sponsored by Senator Angus King of Maine, the resolution was agreed to “without amendment and with a preamble by Unanimous Consent.”

Maine is the largest lobster-producing region in the world, and lobstering is a multi-generational family tradition. There are no corporate fleets, but independent lobster boat owners and more than 5,600 independent lobstermen who work on the boats (the women are also called lobstermen).

Lobstering is an important component of the state’s economy, and care is taken to keep it that way.
 
 
MAINE LOBSTERS ARE SUSTAINABLE

Maine lobstermen were committed to sustainability and traceability long before it was fashionable. The industry’s 150 years of responsible fishing practices have earned it the Marine Stewardship Council’s sustainable seafood certification.

Just-caught lobsters at the dock. Photo courtesy Lobsters From Maine.

A new generation of modern chefs has added excitement to lobster meals, by trading the conventional boiled or broiled lobster with drawn butter for more modern flavor pairings: cilantro, ginger, honey and wasabi, for example. Classic dishes like Lobster Thermidor have given way to the far more popular Lobster Mac and Cheese.

Now, what about the wine?

As with many dishes, and especially fish and seafood, the type of wine is best matched to the preparation. Thanks to Lobster From Maine for some of these suggestions, which we merged with our own.

 
Maine Lobster Trivia

 
Here’s more lobster trivia.

We saw this dessert on the Facebook page of Distilled NY in Manhattan’s TriBeCa neighborhood, and decided it was an American version of the Eton Mess. We nicknamed it the Mounds Mess, because it combines coconut and chocolate.

Chef Shane Lyons of Distilled NY creates his “Mess” with brownie brittle, chocolate pudding, frozen coconut marshmallows and coconut macaroons.

We did a version with brownie strips, coconut ice cream, French meringues and mascarpone; and, because we have a slight preference for Almond Joy, we tossed in some toasted almonds.

 
And what about an Almond Joy Mess? Add an almond component:

 
Want to get fancy? Layer your mess in a glass bowl, like a trifle. It will become a mess when you scoop it onto plates.