With three young children, most of my recipes end up being kid-friendly. However, this week I have a delicious recipe just for the adults: apple ice wine, frozen to create a delicious slushy dessert.

Thanks to a new law this year, local wine producers are now able to sell their wine at farmer’s markets. This season, Still River Winery out of Harvard, Massachusetts has joined the Westford Farmer’s Market.  They produce one wine: Apfel Eis, an apple ice wine. Apfel Eis is the creation of the Holtzman family. Using cider from local apples, they somehow manage to squeeze eighty apples into each bottle after the cider has been concentrated and fermented.

While I can talk food all day, I must admit I don’t know much about wine. To my uninformed palate, I have just two categories for wine:  yum, and ick. Apfel Eis fell firmly in the “yum” category for me. My husband and I enjoyed it as an accompaniment to dessert, and the bottle also suggests it would pair well with soft cheese. Once I tasted how sweet and delicious it was, I knew it would work wonderfully as a wine slush.

In season raspberries complement the flavor of the apple ice wine in this recipe. I wish I could have found golden raspberries to try in this recipe, but there were only red raspberries at the market. The red raspberries turned the wine slush a dark pink color. It was still delicious, but I would have liked to preserve the golden color of the original apple ice wine. If anyone tries this with golden raspberries, I’d love to hear how it turns out!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Apfel Eis Apple Ice Wine
• ½ pint raspberries, washed
• 1 ¼ cups water
• 1/3 cup sugar

Directions:

• In a medium sauce pan, add water and sugar.  Heat over medium high, stirring frequently, until all the sugar has dissolved.
• Pour the sugar water, Apple Ice Wine, and raspberries into a medium bowl.  Cover and store overnight (or at least 8 hours) in the refrigerator.
• Place a fine mesh strainer over a freezer-safe container that is approximately 11” x 7”.  Make sure to pick a container that will fit in your freezer!  Pour the liquid through the strainer, and then use a rubber spatula to squish the raspberries.  You want to get a lot of juice out of the berries, but try not to push the seeds through the strainer.  Juicy pulp will collect on the bottom of the strainer.  Use your spatula to scape that into the wine mixture.
• Stir the wine mixture to fully incorporate the raspberry juice.  Place the container flat in your freezer.  Every hour or so, use a fork to scrape up the wine slush so it doesn’t freeze solid.  The wine slush is ready when it’s, well, slushy.  Give it about 3 hours.  Scoop into dishes and enjoy!