Five drinks that capture the vibrancy of an Irish summer

Enjoy the berry and fruit flavours in a bottle of locally produced gin, rum or mead

Summer drinks

Aoife Carrigy

I saw a striking image recently from Wicklow Way Wines, Pamela Walsh and Brett Stephenson’s unique family-run winery that uses not grapes but all sorts of Irish-grown berries to make its Irish fruit wines. The Instagram photo was of a large, crimson-coloured sheet of the pulp of 35,000 strawberries after they had been pressed of all their juice. With approximately 150 strawberries going into each bottle of Móineir Irish Strawberry Wine, that’s the makings of about 40 cases of this pure gorgeous stuff.

It looks like the most delicious edible fruit leather, except there’s zero flavour or aroma left in the pulp. It’s all gone into the wine itself, bottled for when you pop it open to serve with some Irish goat or sheep’s cheese, perhaps, or a smoked trout salad, or some Irish charcuterie.