Chesnok Red

Harvests early-mid summer - stores through mid-winter

A true medium hardneck garlic that is sweet when roasted.

Chesnok Red is yet another one of the garlics from the Republic of Georgia in the former USSR. Chesnok is a standard Purple Stripe and has the typical heavy purple striping that gives this variety its name. They have about as much purple as Rocamboles but the background color of the bulb wrappers is much more whitish, making for a very attractive appearance. Chesnok Red can become a rather large garlic with excellent growing conditions.

The outer bulb wrappers are a little thin & loose, but the more you peel away, the thicker and tighter they get (makes the bulb wrappers easy to peel). Once the cloves are revealed, they are seen to be large and with long thin points and are all milky white with cranberry-colored streaks up the outsides of the cloves whike the edges between the cloves are nearly solid cranberry and the elongated tips rather tannish. Large bulbs will have about a dozen cloves and even the inner ones are of good size. They can run an inch or two up the central scape (false stem) and are not only attractive but make the cloves easy to peel.

They have fewer but larger cloves (average of 8 to 10) arranged in a rather circular pattern. Although large bulbs will have about a dozen cloves and even the inner ones are of good size.

Chesnok Red is a full flavored garlic with a mellow aftertaste that sticks around nicely for a while. Best baking garlic and a great all-around garlic. Some years it can be hotter or milder than usual, but it is always fully garlicky.

Chesnok Red is the sweetest roasting garlic of them all; It doesn't just taste not garlicky, it actually tastes sweet. Garlic ice cream made with roasted Chesnok Red has the taste and crunchiness of butter brickle ice cream - try it, it's fabulous.