Serves 12
4 cups picked sorrel sepals*
1-inch piece of ginger root
12 whole cloves seeds
12 whole pimento (allspice) seeds
4 cinnamon leaves or stem rolls
10 cups of water brought to a boil
1 cup brown sugar or more to taste
Lime juice, to taste (optional)
1 tablespoon of rice (optional); this is sometimes added to the brew to aid in fermentation, which adds fizz to stored bottles of the drink.
Directions:
1. Add sorrel, ginger, spice seeds and leaves to rapidly boiling water. Maintain heat until all returns to a boil.
2. Reduce heat and simmer for an additional 5 minutes.
3. Strain off the sepals, etc.; sweeten the liquid with sugar; and (if using) add lime juice to taste. Add rice, if desired.
4. Bottle and serve chilled. A small amount of rum may be added, if not being served to children or teetotalling adults.
Notes:
Red sorrel is Jamaica’s traditional Christmas drink and would typically not be had at any other time of the year; it is served to visitors along with a small bit of Jamaican Christmas cake throughout the season. Commercialized juices claiming to be “Jamaican hibiscus drink” or juice of “Flor de Jamaica” are likely knock-offs of the worst kind.
*The red sorrel sepals, picked and ready for brewing, are now readily available online.
The featured image, “Silver Trio,” is courtesy of Lancia E. Smith and is used with her glad permission for Cultivating.
Denise Armstrong (née Stair), blogs from a Christian cross-cultural perspective at denisesarmstrong.com. Born Jamaican, she received her Diploma in Education and a BA degree from Shortwood Teacher’s College and the University of the West Indies, Mona, in Jamaica.
She delights to serve in areas of Christian discipleship, alongside her husband Claude. Their marriage of over thirty years which has joyfully produced three ‘Jamerican’ offspring, has also generated much fodder for marriage ministry to young couples. They thoroughly enjoyed serving in this capacity in their recent five-year tour of duty in Germany where they ministered among the US military community there. She also earned an MA in Christian Cultural Apologetics while there.
Denise’s work in playwriting, poetry, and creative-non-fiction essays, has appeared on Jamaican television, in international poetry reading events, and in The Joyful Life and Cultivating, as well as in The Caribbean Writer, a Literary Journal of the Virgin Islands.
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