Sticky summer brings edible delights to the forest edges. Chanterelles are in season, blueberries are ripening, and a shiny, scarlet raspberry relative is ready to collect: Wineberries are one of the prettiest of the aggregate fruits, their seeds hidden inside glossy drupelets so plump with juice that they appear about to burst. Collect as many as you like. This introduced and invasive shrub forms dense, prickly, shady thickets that prevent native plants from growing. But wineberries are a summer delicacy, and an hour’s dedicated picking yields pounds of useful  fruit.

Photography by Marie Viljoen.

Like their raspberry and thimbleberry* cousins, wineberries belong to the Rubus genus. They are R. phoenicolasius, native to East Asia and imported to the United States in the late-19th century as hardy breeding stock for raspberries. Because the two regions’ climates are so similar (humid summers, cold winters), wineberries naturalized widely, and now displace native berries and other species.

(* Visit out Raspberry Cheat Sheet to tell the difference between these similar-looking fruit.)

In New York, wineberries ripen after native black raspberries, and just before blackberries, filling a brief, neat niche in the abundant summer months of soft fruit.

In my experience, these vivid berries are best eaten very simply, with minimal interference. Wineberries are soft, juice-filled, slightly tart, and delicately sweet. They tend not to be intensely flavored, but this could vary, depending on rainfall and whether they are growing in full sun or the high shade of woodlands. My favorite way to eat them is from a bowl, with a spoon. As a seasonal dessert it is elemental and ephemeral.

Mashed and muddled directly into drinks, wineberries are beautiful and their juiciness an asset. Cooked, their flavor intensifies.

I often put wineberries through a foodmill to separate the seeds, strain the juice once more, and use it fresh or cook it down into an unsweetened syrup; it stays good in the refrigerator for a week, and freezes well.

Adding sugar helps prolong their life, of course, so wineberry preserves (where the delicate fruit stays almost whole), jams, and jellies follow. They seem to contain very little pectin, and I find that boiling them too long is all too easy. For preserves, I heat the fruit gently to a simmering point, then allow them to cool completely before heating again.

I add lemon juice to my wineberry jams and watch the cooking pot closely—it reaches setting point quickly and briefly, and after that no amount of cooking will get it to gel. (Added pectin would also work.)

Drink the Weeds

A scarlet summer sipper.

• 10 wineberries
• 2 Tablespoons sugar
• 2 oz gin
• 3 springs pineapple mint
• Tonic

In a cocktail shaker or tall glass, crush the wineberries using a pestle or spoon. Drizzle a little of the juice out onto a saucer and dip the rim of your glass in it. Keeping the glass rim-side down, dip it gently into a saucer of the sugar. Stand it up to dry for a few minutes.

Add the gin and mint to the wineberry shaker or glass and muddle. Sit for a minute. Strain the mixture into your prepared glass (some seeds are fine), add ice, and top with tonic water.

See also:

• Summer on Ice: Easy Garden-Inspired Drinks for Your Next Get-Together
• Beach Plum: A Resilient Native Shrub for Flowers, Fruit, and Gin
• Taste of Summer: Surprising and Savory Ways to Enjoy Stone Fruit