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Folks around here (VA) call these Ottamalla berries. They grow wild and black bears are said to love them. They have a familiar taste - kinda like a cross between apple and tart cherry. I'm told that they have a very astringent taste when unripe. There is also a slight astringency to the ripe berries. They are about the size of a small green pea. I can't seem to find much of anything about them on the internet. Anybody know what they are, or have you ever used them in a ferment? The leaves in the pictures are a bit wilted after sitting in my truck since yesterday.

Looks like "bird cherries".

Prunus Virginiana?

I believe you can macerate them in neutral, then redistill.
But they are probably too low in sugar and scarce to ferment on their own.

BUT... I think both choke cherry and bird cherry can mean a number of different plants, some maybe toxic.

Dan P. wrote:Prunus Virginiana?

Looks very much like it, but they're not growing in grape-like clusters like the ones you're referencing - https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=P ... mp=yhs-001" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow .

I dunno man, you need to find an expert. Around here we have "bird cherries", which are just shitty wild cherries, and we have "bird cherries" which are a kind of creeper with a berry more akin to a currant to look at, which look pretty poisonous. Nobody really eats either. But I'm in the UK, different continent.
If it has a stone, I would feel optimistic. If not... find an expert.

Dan, it has a pit, very small, but much like a cherry. It could be what you said - maybe the ones I grabbed just aren't as well developed. Everything else about them looks much the same. We have a small grape here that we call fox grapes. Grows on a vine with leaves very much like grape leaves. Maybe it's the same as the creeper you speak of.

You talked about macerating the "bird cherries" in neutral. I'm thinking with the little bit of astringency these berries have, it might make a nice adjunct to a gin recipe.

If birds and other critters don't eat them, steer clear... It's just not worth the risk... Chances are that if they are too bitter to be palatable they don't have enough sugar content to worry about anyway...

I Dunno SC you make it and I'll drink it.
Friend in Michigan says they're poison but I'll drink it anyways.

In my neck of the woods, their know as chokecherries. They taste terrible eaten fresh off the tree, but are used for jams and wine.
Wilted leaves are very poisonous to horses and cattle. Something about stomach acid turning it into cyanide.

Oh, I tasted a few. They taste damned good, but I don't think I would chow down on them because of the astringency. At the very least, seems like they would give you a good case of the trots if you ate too many. Anybody around where I am (VA/WV mountain area) ever hear the name Ottamalla berries? Sounds like an Indian name.

I'm not so sure about the sugar thing. My hands were quite sticky from some of the ones I pulled off the tree.

Have you tried calling your state or county extension office? Around the midwest you can also call your local dept of natural resources officer and they usually have someone in a forestry role who can help identify them if you forward your pictures. Just a thought.

The county extension office is a gold mine of information

Is it these? Cotoneaster Berry

Cotoneaster is considered to have berries with low to no toxicity. It does not appear on the HTA list of potentially harmful plants nor in reference books.
'Low to no' means you might get a belly ache if you ate a bucketful but you wouldn't do that.

Looks like autumn olive which makes a fine spirit. I have had it in a wine which was good and in a mixed fruit "palinka" which was good too. I think I posted about it a year or two ago.

If they aren't choke cherries, they might be pin cherries. When ripe they are very tasty. We would pick them and Grandma made pin cherry jam and syrup out of them. She did the same with choke cherries but choke cherries weren't nearly as tasty.

Pin cherries are red and smaller than choke cherries. Choke cherries are a purple blue when ripe, pin cherries are bright red and very tart but not astringent. The pin cherry tree is about 12 foot where choke cherry tree can be 20 feet tall. A good pin cherry tree will yield maybe a half gallon, a choke cherry tree will yield a couple gallons of berries.

Kiwi, your picture looks as close as I've seen to the tree (bush) my twig came from. I think I'm going out again today to try to collect a gallon or so. The flavor is so good I thought I might crush and add some of them to an apple juice ferment.

Do the leaves and berries have tiny silver specks? If so, I have to agree with Steep-N-Rocky, Autumn Olive (eleagnus umbellata or maybe angustifia) Good fruit, mostly seed. Sugar content seems to vary from bush to bush. I have grazed on a few bushes that were very sweet. Watch for spurs!

Look for http//www.michigan.gov/documents/dnr/Autumn_O ... 9111_7.pdf.
It should give you a positive ID.

I didn't say this before, but I appreciate all the suggestions for research. I'll definitely follow up on them. My interest is peaked. I didn't even know these things existed until a few days ago.

Thanks everyone for your help with this.

Well, that was a bust. I drove out to where I saw the berries a couple of days ago. Took along a bucket to pick as many as I could find. Wasn't nary a berry to be found. Guess somebody, or the birds, beat me to them.

for future reference the cyanide in chokecherries is in the pits. Indians ground up the whole berry, grinding the pit. When they dried the mash the cyanide evaporated. If they tried to eat it fresh they choked. Hence "choke" cherry.

Here is the post I mentioned previously, http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... e#p7034787. The berries pictured above are autumn olive or Russian olive. If you ever get a chance to work with autumn olive, do as it is good stuff!

Chokecherry has been made into Eau de Vie here in North America.

The problem is that the bottle is $65. For a half sized bottle.

Any takers?