Making liqueurs

Preamble

A few years ago I got hooked on cocktails. It began when I ordered a box of assorted premium spirits from an online retailer. I still have the email, so I can say it contained 3 bottles of premium plain vodka, and one bottle each of berry- and lime-flavoured vodka. Throughout my sixth form and university years, my tastes for alcohol changed, as you would expect. When I was a teenager, I drank tequila, alcopops (which were still quite new then), and whatever else was cheapest. Then vodka and orange (again the cheapest I could find) took centre stage, before I gave up drinking almost entirely for over a year. When I resumed, I started taking advantage of the good wine shops in the city, and tried numerous whites and rosés (red was still rather too challenging on a daily basis).

In France, where I spent a lot of time in my third year (I studied French, see), I drank more wine (I have fond memories of the chain Nicolas's budget rosé range, where you could get a very decent bottle for €2.50, which in those days was a pittance), and kir, which was invariably the cheapest drink in bars (white wine, traditionally Bourgogne aligoté, with crème de cassis - blackcurrant liqueur). Returning to the UK afterwards, I started enjoying the odd Long Island iced tea, and vodka. So by this point - not long before I finished - my tastes were broad, and I was eager to learn more.

I also liked absinthe, but that's another story.

When I finished my degree, I had a lot of spare time, and I started reading books on cocktails. You might be surprised - but a food-lover is likely to enjoy reading recipe books, and cocktail formulae are merely simple recipes. What I started to do was make lists of drinks I wanted to try, and the ingredients I needed to buy in order to make them. By the end of this period, two or three years later, I had a personal collection of well over 100 spirits, liqueurs, bitters, and many more syrups and mixers. I've since drunk, given away, or disposed of them all - my house no longer regularly contains alcohol at all, as it's too much of a temptation. However, I do enjoy making my own, and recently I've begun making liqueurs again, from seasonal fruit - sometimes home-grown.

The issue at hand

The beauty of this is, they are useful as straight drinks - Amalfi limoncello is beautiful over ice - but particularly good in simple, delicious cocktails. The fruit syrup is great too, of course, but its keeping qualities are much poorer. The alcohol in a liqueur should keep it fresh for many months, especially if unopened.

You can flavour liqueurs with almost anything. And I should say, before I continue, that by 'liqueur' (not to be confused with liquor), I mean a syrupy, sweetened alcoholic drink made from fruit, herbs, spices, nuts, and the like, combined with sugar and spirit alcohol, usually 15-25% alcohol by volume (though some commercial ones are stronger). I'll leave out cream liqueurs here, which include the addition of dairy products, and sometimes eggs, because they are rather different in production and keeping qualities.

This week I've made two, with a third in production - quince, plum, and pear. These fruits are ripe now, so are perfect for transforming into things that can be enjoyed later, but almost anything can be used - though some are easier than others.

Basic liqueur recipe
ingredients
Fresh, ripe, seasonal fruit
Sugar
Spirit (vodka, brandy, and rum are best, but whisky and gin are possible)
Optionally: citric acid, lemons or limes, water
basic method

• First the flavour of the fruit must be extracted. There are three main ways of doing this. First, you may juice them directly. This works well with firm, watery fruits, like apples and watermelon. Use a domestic juicer. The second method, which is suitable for all types of fruit, is to gently heat the fruit in a pan, with a small amount of water. The third is to steep the fruit, whole or chopped, in the spirit, but I'll say more on that below.
• Take the juice, or the heated pulp, and strain. The best way to do this is using a sieve lined with muslin. If there is a lot of pulp, skin, etc, you may be best sieving it without the muslin first, to remove most of the solids. Gently press the mass wrapped in muslin if you like - but the result may be a slightly cloudy liqueur.
• Then, put the clarified juice in a pan, and add sugar, lemon, and citric acid to taste. I only started using citric acid recently, but find it excellent for correcting the acid/sugar balance. It's a white powder, used in many types of cooking, and sold in some supermarkets, ethnic food shops, and home brew suppliers. A little goes a long way, but it really perks up the juice, and can help bring out the flavour of less than perfect fruit. It's also great if you add too much sugar, as it brings the mixture back into balance.
• Once it tastes right, add the alcohol. The strength is up to you - I'd say no more than 50/50. Then readjust the sweetness and acidity - remember, the alcohol will have a certain kick, or burn, and the final sugar and acid levels will be higher than in a non-alcoholic syrup in order to carry this - unless you use very smooth, expensive alcohol, which is a bit of a waste anyway.
• Once it is to your taste, pour into clean, sterilised bottles. Store in a dark, cool place. The flavours are often said to "mature" over several months - possibly due to slow chemical reactions between the alcohol, sugar, and acid - but I am not sure if there's any real difference (unlike, say, in a wine, where there's a much more complex interplay with dead yeast enzymes, etc).

The colours can be beautiful - I don't understand why most commercial examples are still coloured artificially, since fruit and herbs have so much of their own. Of course, if you use golden sugar, or brown spirit (like brandy), or honey (a little of which makes a lovely addition to some), then it will be darker.

The third way is more traditional. Take a large jar, and place alternating layers of sugar and fruit into it. Add the spirit of your choosing to cover. Ideally, you would fill it, otherwise the fruit will often float to the top - but you can weigh it down (this is how a "Rumtopf" or rum pot is made - but in that case, mixed fruit is usually used). Leave for two weeks up to several months, until the liquid is fruity and coloured. Strain. The problem I have with this method is there is no easy way of adjusting the sweetness until the end. It is, however, easier, and you end up with alcohol-soaked fruit, which can be useful as a dessert in itself (although it's not really my cup of tea). This method tends to produce a stronger finished liqueur than those above.

Ways to serve

A good liqueur is excellent served straight, in a small glass especially for that purpose, or a sherry schooner, small wine glass, or even a brandy snifter. Over ice can work well, and sparkling water can be added for a long drink. A simple cocktail can be made by shaking a measure or two of spirit over ice with at least as much liqueur, and possibly a little lemon or lime juice, or the juice of whatever fruit is in the liqueur, or a complementary one, and possibly sugar syrup. It's all to taste, so I can't specify - I prefer much more sour cocktails than most people. Experiment!

It goes almost without saying that this is an excellent way of dealing with a glut of fruit, and makes a lovely handmade gift for those who like a tipple. At the very least, the bright, jewel-like colours are likely to gladden the heart, especially deep in winter.

The picture above shows, in the bottles left to right, plum (also in the glass), banana, pear, and quince liqueurs, all made this month.

What to do with raspberries (part 2)

Once again, I started this a while ago, when there was still a plentiful supply of fruit coming from the garden. Ten days later, I've finally completed it, but the fruit is gone...

Two bottles of raspberry vinegar (for recipe see part 1); on the right, last year's, made from white wine vinegar, now mature; on the left, white balsamic vinegar just beginning to take on the fruit's colour and aroma.

The raspberry glut continues, so I've been searching out more ways of dealing with them. I have started freezing the best ones, in order to prevent them mouldering around my kitchen (at one point, I had a good dozen bowls and colanders full of soft fruit, and it was getting difficult to prevent some going off), and I've made more jam, but there are other ways of preserving their deliciousness...

On July 4th, my friends had a small barbecue. It was the best weather - mostly sunny, really warm (for round here - low 20s), and mild right into the night. As an American was present, I decided to make a red, white, and blue dessert. Originally, I was going to try pavlova, but I had a lot to do, and wasn't inclined to spend several hours on it. The next best thing was Eton mess - incorporating homegrown strawberries and raspberries. I consulted a few recipes online, and adapted them to what I had in. First I whipped double cream with a good drizzle of honey and a dash of vanilla extract. Into this I crumbled shop-bought meringues. Then I took a bowlful each of raspberries and strawberries. half of these were puréed with a hand blender with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar, the passed through a sieve to make a coulis. The final dessert was assembled by stirring the intact fruit (the strawberries were chopped), with a punnet of blueberries, through the cream-meringue mixture, then drizzling the coulis over the top.

The reason I had the cream was a recipe I found in Rick Stein's French Odyssey cookbook for raspberry parfait. Sadly, I never got round to making it. However, for the record, it's a frozen dessert made by whisking eggs yolks and sugar syrup, then adding whipped vanilla cream, crushed raspberries, and freezing in ramekins. They are served topped with fresh raspberries and icing sugar.

Now for something experimental. I developed a love for pomegranate molasses over the winter. I'd never tried it, so when I visited a great Middle Eastern/Turkish/Greek/everything food store in south London in November, I had to get some. It's not cheap, but it goes a long way. It's almost transcendentally intense - sweet and sour together. I like it as it is, but drizzled over roast meat, stirred through cous cous, or added to sparkling wine, it's just as good. I want to make my own sometime, although pomegranates are criminally expensive (as is their juice). However, for now, I'm trying raspberry molasses. I could find no recipes for this online, so I went with instinct. I had a colander of raspberries that were on the turn, so I crushed them, then strained them through muslin with boiling water. I poured the juice into a pan, and added a little white sugar. This was brought to the boil, then simmered very gently, and allowed to reduce until syrupy. I didn't want it to be too sweet, so I kept tasting, to make sure it was balanced (citric acid is useful here, in case you do add too much sugar). The idea was partly to make something unusual, and partly inspired by how quickly the strawberry syrup I made a few weeks ago went mouldy (the liquid under the surface is still fine). A "molasses", being that much more concentrated, will, in theory, keep indefinitely. As for uses, I'm hoping it will work wherever the more usual version is recommended!

A extension of the fruit syrup in the last post on raspberries is the alcoholic version: raspberry liqueur. Essentially, this is a syrup or cordial combined with a spirit. It can keep much longer than the non-alcoholic version, depending on strength. The simplest method is to make a syrup and then combine it with brandy, vodka, or rum. However, I would recommend making the syrup more concentrated, with higher sugar and acidity levels (adjusting with citric acid), in order to counterbalance the alcoholic "burn". Another way of making them is to layer the fruit with sugar in a large jar, topping up with the spirit of your choice. However, it's much harder to balance the flavour, as it takes up to several weeks for the sugar to dissolve, and the fruit juices to seep into the liquor. The method I'm using this time is more complicated than either of these, and based loosely on the recipe for Chambord, a proprietary "black raspberry" liqueur (there are a couple of species of fruit called black raspberries, but I'm not aware of which, if any, is used for this - it has always sounded rather like something dreamed up by their marketing department, especially given neither type of raspberry is native to Europe, yet the liqueur claims 17th century ancestry). The Wikipedia article outlines the method, but it basically involves steeping the fruit in brandy and then pressing. I have started the process, with the addition of a little sugar. The fruit will be left for a couple of weeks, then passed through a sieve, and strained through muslin, before adjusting for taste. This leads to a much stronger liqueur than the first method above, since no water is added to the mix.

Raspberries soaking in brandy. The bits will be strained out before final bottling.

Flavoured spirits were rare a couple of decades ago, but you can buy dozens of kinds nowadays - mostly vodka. It's still worth making your own, however, since you can produce flavours that are unavailable, it works out cheaper (in general), and they tend to taste fresher and less confected (at least to me). Vodka is a clean, neutral base, perfect for any fresh fruit, vanilla, or more exotic things like chilli, ginger, or horseradish. Rum and brandy work with most fruits too, and also spices and dried fruit like raisins and sultanas. Gin is usually paired with the autumn hedgerow fruits damsons and sloes, although summer fruits might be worth a try too. In all these cases, the method is the same: either pour out some of the spirit from its original bottle (assuming it doesn't have one of those pesky plastic contraptions that restrict the flow) and fill with your flavouring of choice, topping up if necessary. Alternatively, place your flavouring into a wide-mouthed jar, and fill up with the spirit. Leave in a cool, dark place for a couple of weeks or several months, shaking regularly. Either strain and return to the bottle, or use as is, although it will need straining before use in cocktails or with a mixer. It goes without saying your flavoured spirit will take on the colour of whatever you've soaked in it - rather than remaining colourless like the commercial versions. If you've made raspberry vodka, try a raspberry martini: shake 2 measures (50ml) raspberry vodka with 1 measure each of sugar syrup (or raspberry syrup, or honey) and either lemon or lime juice. Strain into a chilled martini glass. A measure of fresh raspberry purée would work in this too. Or try a raspberry Collins: stir 2 measures raspberry vodka (or gin), and 1 each of syrup and lemon juice, with ice in a tall glass, and top up with soda water.

(For another cocktail using raspberries, see this previous post).

A raspberry martini - very intense! (Apologies for the use of flash)

No doubt there are plenty of other things you can do with these delicious fruits, but I think that will do for this year.