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 meājuniper! so i did a little light trespassing (itās fine, lol. this is an unpurchased, undeveloped land parcel meant to maybe have a house built on it someday. today, itās 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 arenāt safe are quite bitter, so i tried a nibble of a mature āberryā as a second-tier check. it tasted mildāgood enough for me. this is exactly the kind of wild, devil-may-care shit iām really known for
maybe iām a little late in the year (because there werenāt 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 donāt release from the shrub very easily.
i only wanted about a pintās worth, and there were so many cones on the plants that i didnāt 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 conesāeven looking at this weird, stunted one here.
