I don't own a cherry tree myself, but I've got the next best thing: picking rights on a neighborhood tree.
(“Hi, I'm the guy that's been stealing your cherries,” I said when I finally met the couple that “own” the tree. They laughed. “You're the third person that's told us that,” they said. “Take all you want.”)
This year I harvested about two gallons of cherries. Some became jam; most went into the freezer to be baked into pies in the deep pit of Winter when you're starting to think that Summertime is just a dream, and eating the fruit of July becomes an act of sympathetic magic.
Meanwhile, there's the cherry vodka.
As a neutral spirit, vodka absorbs flavors beautifully. The color, the fragrance, the flavor on the tongue: cherry vodka is Essence of Cherry, Summertime in a glass.
As we do every Yule, this year the Mother Berhta Guerrilla Wassailers will once again be making our annual rounds to do some socially-distanced, doorstep wassailing to deserving households. This year, as one does, we'll be wassailing the cherry tree as well.
We'll gather around the Tree and sing to it, thanking it and asking for more of the same next year.
We'll pour a libation of cherry vodka from the tree's own cherries.
Then we'll toast the tree in its own vodka.
(In the Old Ways, this is what passes for religion. What's not to like?)
