I had some concern that the gin (as opposed to a vodka) would impart an unexpected flavor. Judging by the fact that you didn’t mention anything about tasting any juniper in the persimmons I reckon that you didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary?
I didn’t detect any of the juniper/gin flavor at all, nor did my wife. I found this surprising, since I usually can detect a bit of the alcohol/vodka taste initially when I treat Hachiya this way. That goes away in a few hours or maybe a day after I remove the Hachiya persimmons from the bag, but it is there initially.
Perhaps there is something about the hybrids that related to this, since it took 5 days to reach non-astringency and I usually get that in 3 days with pure Kaki - maybe something about the speed of absorption or the amount that is absorbed?
That said, I would generally always use vodka, but just didn’t have any on hand, except for some vanilla vodka someone had given us that I didn’t want to mess with and it also had slightly lower proof so I wasn’t sure if it would work as well.
@ncdabbler How is your Sestronka producing this year? I believe you had a nice harvest last year and I’m hoping that continues. I have one in a pot I didn’t plant yet since I had heard it wasn’t very productive, but I would love for that to be proved wrong.
@zendog I’ve had another good Sestronka harvest this year. There’s only one fruit left on the tree now, but we’ve had about 40-50 fruit in all. My Sestronka tree is still young, and I’ve been pruning for structure. So I imagine it would’ve produced even more fruit this year if I’d pruned less. It’s still one of my favorite persimmons in terms of flavor and texture. I’ve had more Kasandra fruit this year to compare, and I think they’re about on par in terms of flavor and texture, but Kasandra has significantly smaller fruit than Sestronka and starts ripening earlier. My JT-02 fruit haven’t ripened yet and are just starting to turn yellow/orange, and my tree has a much smaller crop than last year. JT-02 has a watery texture, so my favorite way to eat it is dried. Rosseyanka fruit are all orange but still pretty firm.
Thanks. That’s great to here. Did you get a chance to compare Sestronka to Nikita before you lost it? I consider Nikita the queen of persimmons that I’ve tasted so far. My Sestronka is still in a pot and while it has set a few fruit all have dropped so far.
Yes, I did compare Sestronka and Nikita’s Gift side-by-side and posted about it here: Hybrid Persimmons Future Look Great - #1365 by ncdabbler I like Nikita’s Gift too - the texture and flavor are excellent, and it has slightly bigger fruit on average than my Sestronka has so far (but my NG was also an older tree if that’s a factor). For flavor I would give a slight edge to Sestronka and Kasandra, but only slightly. So far, but Sestronka has been a more consistent producer (NG tended to alternate between heavy and light crops). EDIT: I found my post from last year in this thread and added it above. I guess Kasandra is a lot tastier this year - I wasn’t as impressed last year, but this year they’ve been very good
Does Sestronka have more american flavor in your tastings? That’s what Cliff says so curious
Compared to Nikita’s Gift, I would agree that Sestronka has more American flavor, though it’s still an intermediate between kaki and virginiana.
Those are some tiny Nikita’s Gift fruit in the top right of your picture - they look smaller than Kasandra. In my experience, Kasandra and Rosseyanka have been significantly smaller than NG