decided i was gonna try and make mugolio (an evergreen syrup most typically made using immature pine cones + sugar) using the edible cones most locally available to me—juniper! so i did a little light trespassing (it’s fine, lol. this is an unpurchased, undeveloped land parcel meant to maybe have a house built on it someday. today, it’s nothing to anybody)
yeah, juniper berries are weird cones!
my best ID attempts narrow these shrubs near me to be likely Juniperus virginiana (eastern redcedar) or Juniperus scopulorum (Rocky Mountain juniper), both of which are safe varieties.
supposedly, the few varieties that aren’t safe are quite bitter, so i tried a nibble of a mature “berry” as a second-tier check. it tasted mild—good enough for me. this is exactly the kind of wild, devil-may-care shit i’m really known for
maybe i’m a little late in the year (because there weren’t many green, totally-immature cones still around), but i think these pale blue ones should still be plenty young enough. unlike the few dark blue, mature berries i saw, they don’t release from the shrub very easily.
i only wanted about a pint’s worth, and there were so many cones on the plants that i didn’t even make a dent. so, even though i was picking for a long time to get as many as i wanted, there was no worry of over-harvesting
i have trouble wrapping my head around these berries being cones—even looking at this weird, stunted one here.
