Calle de las Endrinas

The sloe is the fruit of the blackthorn, a spiny, tangled shrub that grows wild across much of Europe. In spring it covers itself with white flowers before leafing out; at summer’s end it yields small purple drupes coated in a bluish bloom. Raw it is so astringent that it is almost never eaten as it is, and instead macerated: from it comes pacharán, left to steep in anisette for a few months until it stains the liqueur red. Calle de las Endrinas arose in a part of the Hispanoamérica neighbourhood where names were chosen on botanical grounds, among neighbouring streets that also evoke the plants and shrubs of northern Madrid.