Black raspberries?

[Brewgrrrl]

Other than people lucky enough to have black raspberries growing near them, has anyone found a good source of black raspberries? Concentrate, frozen, puree - anything would be helpful. I'm trying to do a fruit-loaded melomel recipe and I don't have the black raspberries for it. I thought about substituting blackberries and maybe upping the amount of red raspberries in the recipe, but if possible I'd like to have the real deal.

Thanks!

 

[Brewgrrrl]

Well, the lack of responses here so far does not bode well.

I did find a place in Oregon that supplies food-businesses and they would ship their purees/concentrates to individuals. Unfortunately, their products have to be kept frozen and the cost of shipping to an individual would be prohibitive.

I'm really surprised that there isn't a source for home wine-makers. Anyone??????

 

[Bartman]

No help here. Raspberries generally don't grow well south of the Mason-Dixon line, and realy don't grow at all in Texas. I can't think of a single place I've seen where "black raspberries" were sold on their own. The only times I have seen the phrase "black raspberry" was as a candy flavor - is the flavor significantly different from red raspberry?

I guess you'll have to decide to spen the dough for the real deal or "fudge the recipe" to use what's available, as a good experimenter would.
Bart

 

[Brewgrrrl]

I do have a friend in Ohio who has black raspberries growing wild all over her property, but the 3+ hour drive prevented me from getting down there this year. Last year I picked enough for an AMAZING one gallon batch of wine - it was sooooooo good. I'm just so surprised that puree isn't available commercially. I would think there would be a huge market for it.

I'm comfortable experimenting, but knowing how great the real deal is... I'm not quite giving up on finding some somewhere still.

 

[Brewgrrrl]

Aha! This is within driving distance for me and I know this guy gets the concentrate in bulk from Canada and it's good stuff: http://www.homewinery.com/cgi-bin/concen.cgi

Woo-hoo!!! Doing the happy winemaking dance...

 

[Brewgrrrl]

A friend of mine has also informed me that Trader Joe's sometimes has frozen black raspberries as well as black raspberry juice and concentrate. Ah, life is good...