Mugolio

Driving home today from work I passed a white pine loaded with young green cones within reach from the ground.  Jumped out of the car and started harvesting (always keep bags in your car!).  I've been wanting to try my hand at making some mugolio (a.k.a. pine syrup....original was made from mugo pines, thus the name).  Fred made some last year and said it smelled great, which reminded me that I need to do this.  Link to Fred's post

Anyhow, here's my jar of young green pine cones packed in brown sugar after about 2 hrs.  You can see the moisture already starting to draw out of the cones to make syrup.  This will ferment for a good month or so and then the cones will be removed out and the syrup will be boiled and bottled.  I love experiments!  I also attached a video to the Forager Chef making some.  Alan has the best recipes....thank you Alan!

One tip I forgot to mention.  Your hands will get covered in pine resin.  I've found that if I rub them with Purell and then rub liquid soap into them, then wash with water that the pine resin is completely removed.

I made some earlier this year from cones from some kind of red pine.  Even though there was lots of moisture and the sugar dissolved completely, it never fermented the way it's supposed to. It's been sitting for a little over a month now, and starting to taste pretty good, nevertheless.

I did fir and spruce tips a little earlier in the year and should probably bottle those soon. I give them a stir and a taste from time to time and, to me and my husband, they taste waaaay better than maple syrup and better than the pine cone syrup. I don't really include refined sugar in my diet, so I wasn't sure what I'd do with this stuff. My husband informed me he'll be happy to consume it Winnie the Pooh style, so I guess it'll get used.

It's ridiculously easy to make. The hardest part is getting the pine cones.

Using fir and spruce tips sounds wonderful, Jan.  Thank you.  I need to locate some as well as maybe add some to my land.  At my place I have mainly hemlocks and white pine.  You have  me very curious now about if fermentation will kick off or not.  The not knowing is always part of the fun.  I'll try to post updates and will be on the lookout for fir and spruce.  Alan mentioned that balsam fir was his favorite for mugolio.

We've got mostly white pine, too, although I gather they're different in the east vs. west. I was planning to give mine a try next year. By the time I got the spruce and fir tips most of them were getting a bit old, and the white pine was definitely past prime, so I didn't bother with it. I think you'd just have to chop them up a bit so they don't poke out of the sugar so much.

For the first couple weeks the fir tips were a bit resiny tasting, but they mellowed out.

I pulled out the white pine cones and boiled the syrup to 219F like I do when making maple syrup and jarred up my first batch.  Now I think I'm addicted!  I noticed that some of my eastern hemlocks had fresh new green cones so now a batch of hemlock mugolio is started on my kitchen table.  Gathering those was nice as they were not resinous on their outer surface.  They didn't really smell either.  I kneaded them with the brown sugar I was using and then they emitted a lovely smell.  While I wait for this batch I'll be experimenting with the tasty white pine mugolio.  

Yup, mugolio is another sweet way we can get everyone addicted to nature  I'm bringing some to work today for tastings.