I recall the first time I laid eyes on this calamari of the fruit world. Buddha’s Hand intrigued me. I had never seen it in Canada and had no idea what to do with it when I bought one lonely withered one once I was planted in California. It didn’t smell much like citrus and rotted within a few days. Still, I felt that if I could have a few from a grower, I would have room to experiment. Thanks to an online marketplace, I found a kind soul willing to share a few bags from her locally grown tree in exchange for what I hoped would extract out of the still.
This is one fruit worth exploration; it’s juicy and fragrant with floral notes much like Bergamot or so I initially thought. The next day, it evolved to more of a yuzu profile which as a yuzu fanatic, pleased me to no end. I’ve make Buddha’s Hand lemonade, candied it, eaten it raw, made hydrosol from this distillation and even got a little essential oil. The fingers are large, generous and even at this writing, I’m running a second distillation.
Thank you for watching weekly distillations of my wild foraging in Northern California plus some off the grid distillations of aromatics in my apothecary. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or experiences you’d like to share.
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See video on our channel: https://youtu.be/89fF1XZZsew