PRIMITIVIZIA MUGOLIO PINE CONE BUD SYRUP

Dark, woodsy, and unlike anything else in the pantry. Mugolio is made from the tender young buds of the Mugo pine, gathered by hand each May at around 2,000 metres in the Dolomite Alps, then slowly macerated in sugar and water through the summer months before being cooked down into a thick, fragrant syrup. The flavour is extraordinary: dark honey, wild rosemary, a whisper of maple, and something that can only be described as the smell of a pine forest after rain.

Eleonora Cunaccia is one of the few residents of the Dolomiti del Brenta National Park with a permit to forage within its boundaries — a licence that took over a year and a half to obtain, and required a change in European law to create an entirely new business category: Officina Botanica. She gathers only one bud per branch to protect the plant, revisiting the same places her grandfather and father once went. To make a single 100g jar, around 100 individual pine cone buds are needed. Her guiding principle, as she says herself: "La natura ha il suo ritmo e bisogna sapere aspettare." Nature has its rhythm, and you need to know how to wait.

Drizzle over a cheese board alongside a slice of Huddle sourdough, spoon over a pork roast or grilled chicken, stir into yogurt for breakfast, or drizzle over ice cream. Also a beautiful addition to a cocktail.

Imported from Italy.
Size: 100ml / 3.4 fl oz