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I took a shot at some phonetic spelling of a name I remembered from my youth…..

And…I was surprised to find that I wasn’t too far off…..

…..ahhhhh…the memories of Slivovitz…..

*****(Just What Is This Nectar?)*****

…..home-made…in the cellar…in our farmhouse…in Ohio…in the sixties…..

My father did enjoy the calculated…organized…rotting of fruit…..

…..I still have some stored/unidentified copper tubing in my garage…attached to old corks…secured in place by melted wax…not to mention the collection of old crocks on my porch…..

…..I doubt I could ever figure out the science of distillation…(plus in the quantities I’d want…it’s illegal)…(shhhh)…..

While I worked on the Women’s Tennis Tour…I would regularly visit the Chemists (drug stores) while in Great Britain…to bring home Boot’s Beer Kits for my Dad…..

…..some people bring home presents they picked up on the run through airports…..

I…on the other hand…would shlep heavy cans of yeast and “things” back home…for my Dad…who knew “exactly” what to do with them…..

As a child…(yes…I’m quite sure I was below drinking age)…(but hey…that was even BEFORE there WAS a minimum drinking age)…I remember sitting in our basement…..

…..with our Airedale Terrier…..

…..hunkered down between the dog food bin and our large crock of percolating goodness…..

I would toss some dog kibbles (I may have eaten a few myself) while picking out  (blackened…wrinkly…only-slightly-moldy…but-highly-fermented) floating cherries…..

No one ever knew…..

I even remember spitting the pits behind the furnace…..

…..!!!?!!!How Was I Left So Under-Supervised And To My Own Devices!!!?!!!…..

…..!!!My Own Devices Were Hardly Ever Good Choices!!!….

…..(it was the best of times)…..

I just read that Slivovitz is made with plums…(now I understand why we had plum trees on the farm…but they were never productive)…..

*****(Genuine Slivovitz Is Made With Plums)*****

…..but our sour cherry tree…..that good little tree was bountiful…and I also get why my Dad was so protective of it…..

Every year…he would cover it with cheese-cloth and do battle with the Grackles to protect the tree’s harvest…..

…..*****(Those Damned Grackles!!!)*****…..

He knew how to fiddle with the gravity-what-nots…and the percentages of alcohol…and the timing of added sugar…and stuff like that…..

So I guess my Dad made a bastardized-version of something that we erroneously called Slivovitz…..

…..I didn’t mind what it was called…I didn’t know any better…I just knew those cherries were super-dee-dooper-tasty…..

I wonder if that sour cherry tree is still there?…..

 

 

 

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