Monastery Recipe

The monastery is a sweet, fresh plum-flavored sour featuring slivovitz, a dry plum brandy. It was once featured on the menu at baba, a serbian restaurant in arlington, virginia. Were always fans of drinks that feature preserves, for their rich flavor and velvety texture. This time, we got lucky we happened to have a damson-plum jam from trappist, a brand produced at st. Josephs abbey in massachusetts. Slivovitz is also made from damson plums, so it was a perfect match, bringing out the complex fruit flavors of the brandy. That said, we think nearly any stone fruit jam would be lovely with this, and pick up on different notes in the plum brandy. Peach might be pushing it, but a red plum or apricot jam would be lovely.