Raise a glass with Hannah Lawson, bar manager at Heft in Cumbria

The fields and hedgerows offer up a spectrum of free and flavourful infusions that can personalise drinks all year round, says Hannah Lawson, bar manager at Heft in High Newton, Cumbria

The hedgerows, hills and woodlands of the Lake District teem with free, fresh ingredients. With nature’s many offerings right on our doorstep, we at Heft like to let the local flora inspire, inform and define our menus.

We strive to throw away as little as possible – our ethos is that waste isn’t waste until it’s in the bin! With this in mind, we created our rhubarb and custard cocktail, a highlight of our menu since its inception. Our chefs poach rhubarb to perfection for their ‘very French toast’ dessert, producing a surplus of striking pink, deliciously tart syrup, which inspired and became the central flavour of our retro dessert cocktail.

Dehydrating, pickling, fermenting and infusing are just some of the methods we use to push the versatility of our ingredients and extend their shelf life. Preservation is cost-effective as well as environmentally friendly, enabling one to be both thrifty and creative.

One example of this came about during lockdown, when our chef-patron, Kevin Tickle, saved some of Coniston Brewery’s iconic Bluebird Bitter from going down the drain. He fermented it and it now features as the brine for one of our favourite bar snacks, pickled eggs.

Homemade infusions produce a fresher, more natural taste than mass-produced flavoured spirits, syrups and liqueurs, and creating them is easy, inexpensive and satisfying. The potential flavour combinations are nigh-on unlimited.

The infusion process can vary with the ingredients, but is often as simple as preparing the fruit, veg, spices, herbs, nuts, leaves, seeds or flowers, adding them to a base spirit, then waiting a few days. While most of us aren’t accustomed to waiting days for anything, let alone a drink, rest assured you won’t regret it!

Regardless of the season, there are always plenty of inspiring local ingredients to be had for free. Summer marks the arrival of green juniper berries and aromatic flora, such as flowering currant, mugwort and barbary blossom, along with pineapple weed, a fragrant relative of chamomile and our favourite addition to vodka. Autumn brings blackberries, sea buckthorn and crab apples (which make a punchy old fashioned), followed by hardy sloes and rosehips that are capable of enduring the winter frosts.

As for the spring months, there’s gorse, with its needle-like leaves, which can be awkward to forage but is abundant and easy to spot. Its bright yellow petals, lend notes of coconut and almond to infusions and should deliver a prominent tang to our forthcoming Hefty mojito.

Nature’s larder is always well stocked, and with some simple preservation techniques and a little bit of time, the fruits of one’s labour can be enjoyed all year round.