Colorado (NBC) -- Depending on who you ask, a little alcohol can go with just about anything. Rum
cake, egg nog with brandy or rum, and now on gin soaked raisins. It's actually a
remedy 72-year-old Larry Wright swears by.
Founder Larry Wright
starts by putting jumbo golden raisins into a container. Next, he heats honey and cinnamon to put over the raisins. Then, he adds gin.
There used to be a time when every kitchen was a place where medicine
was made, when we relied on ourselves to make us feel better.
"This is our sobering process and the sobering process starts with draining the
fluids," Wright said.
Of course, when homemade medicine involves booze you have to be
careful.
"We leave them in the oven for 15 minutes," Wright said. "Their
warmth will allow the the alcohol to evaporate. This is really going back to
what your great, great grandma did and it worked for them and it works for me
and it works for a lot of people."
Wright decided to go back to
that time.
"Somebody told me about the gin-soaked raisin as a
possible solution. It could modify the inflammation problem that's caused by
arthritis. So I started fixing them."
It got to the point where the
72-year-old decided to make a business out of it.
Larry says "on one
hand I wanted to do this, on another hand it fills a need."
He sells his
product on drunkenraisins.com.
Larry says "40ish a pound. Using 8 or 9 a
day will last a month."
He swears the gin-soaked fruit won't get you
drunk, just feeling a bit better.
Larry says "it's not like you notice
pain going away, it's like all of a sudden it's not there anymore."
Just like
anything, no matter where it's made you have to use it in moderation.
Physician Dr. John Torres says "the gin is actually flavored with
juniper berries and juniper berries have an anti-inflammatory property. On top
of that, raisins are natural pain relievers and so combining the two might give
you a little bit of benefit."
Dr. Torres says the raisins are probably
doing most of the good in that mix. So if you want to cut back on the alcohol,
he recommends trying them by themselves.