Whisky Marmalade for a Wet Sunday

The garden is showing serious signs of spring with the fruit trees coming into blossom and the rose bushes covered with shiny green to red leaves. The colour of the rose blooms are foretold by the leaves with the red and darker roses having more reddish leaves and with the lighter coloured roses having vibrant green leaves.

Wet Plum Blossoms in the rain

Saturday was spent cleaning, fixing and taking away garden refuse. Having lost all our naartjies to some freelance harvesters we were left with some Valencia and Seville oranges for marmalade making. I harvested oranges and cleaned jars on Saturday to prepare for making marmalade on Sunday.

Prepared  Sweet Orange and Lemon Peel

On Sunday we awoke to a wet wintery scene and with the day still shrouded in darkness I prepared the kitchen for marmalade making. Citrus squeezers, Muslin cloths in bowls for the pulp, sugar, sterilizing jars and chopping boards for hand-slicing peels, were all set out.

Prepared Seville Orange Peel

Normally I would only make one batch of marmalade per day. With Keith helping we decided to make three batches, each batch one hour apart. While the first batch of peels was cooking we started slicing the second batch of peels and when the second batch of peels was cooking we prepared the third batch of peels.

Cooking Marmalade

Cooked Marmalade

We worked like a well-oiled machine and we had two batches of peels cooking to the correct softness and the first batch of marmalade in the final cooking stage. As soon as the first batch was bottled we started the final cooking of the second batch and when the second batch was bottled we started the final cooking the third batch.

A variety of Marmalade

After five hours of making marmalade we had batches of Seville and ginger marmalade, sweet orange marmalade while the second batch of Seville marmalade we decided to turn into whisky marmalade.

Sweet Orange Marmalade

The aroma of marmalade cooking mingled with the homely wood fire smells drifting over from a neighbour’s fireplace. It smelled warm and comforting on a cold wet day and it just seemed appropriate to make whisky marmalade befitting of the misty landscape resembling a rural Scottish Highland scene. It was inevitable that our new hobby would spill over into our yearly production of marmalade making. 

Seville Orange and Ginger Marmalade

I have contemplated chopping the peels with a machine but there is something about a marmalade with hand-sliced peels that just seems right.

Whisky Marmalade

With the season of marmalade making on the property in full swing I will be making marmalade for the next couple of weekends. With so much organic orange peel available, it would seem a waste not to preserve them.

Organic Orange Marmalade

An extra pair of hands made a big difference in the production of the first jars of marmalade of the season, but from next weekend I will be the sole ‘marmalader’. I will have to think of creative flavours for the next batches of marmalade to keep it interesting.

Keith is quite impressed that he can now have whisky for breakfast albeit on his toast.