Homemade Liqueurs

[Aggie]

I've been inspired by the profusion of grapes in the backyard to try my hand at making Concord grape infused vodka.  For the maximum grape punch, I'm going to slip the skins off the grapes and just use those with vodka.  I can sweeten it later, perhaps with the concentrated grape syrup I'm planning to make with the innards.

Anyone else do assemble it yourself liqueurs?  I found a little book of recipes for free at a garage sale in the spring, so I'm interested in socking a few away for the holidays.

I'm also working on a spiced rum, using ponderosa pine bark.  It's already very good with just the pine (which imparts a definite vanilla note, plus a quick-but-noticeable top note of pine resin), but I'd like to add other spices.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Cinnamon.   Never underestimate the power of cinnamon bark, when making spiced drinks...

And if you can get some? Real vanilla beans-- roasted a bit, then slightly mashed/crushed.   Come to think of it, coca beans would be a good addition to your lineup-- they can impart a smoky, complex flavor/scent.

Then, obviously, there's good old roasted coffee beans, again they can be put in whole, or crushed as you desire, depending on how much flavor you wish to release.

Other common drink additives:  lemon/lime/orange peel.   Grated directly off the fresh fruits, or thinly sliced for both flavor and attractive color.

What else?  Flowers/flower-petals are another scent/flavor infuser.   As are the various teas, especially if you can get them whole or nearly so.

And the staples of course: nutmeg, peppercorns, chilies (dried or fresh-- the seeds are where the heat is, but less flavor than the skins, if dried).

And the ubiquitous peppermint, spearmint and the other mint families, can add a crisp note/scent.

Then, borrowing from bar-b-que?  Wood chips.  Seriously, various wood chips are a traditional source of liquor flavor-- American Whiskey gets it's amber color from charcoal-oak wood.  You can achieve similar results, by baking the wood chips over a really hot fire, until they scorch/burn around the edges.  Then quench the fire in water, and put the chunks into your steeping jar-- they'll float, which makes removal easy too.

Obviously, oak is a traditional wood to use, but applewood, cherry, mesquite, pearwood would impart various different fruity notes to your beverage.  Grapewood, too, or so I've read-- smell the raw, wet wood to get kind of an idea, I would surmise-- or test smallish batches, say a liter or so, varying the ratio of wood-to-liquid, keeping in mind the traditional ratios were not that great-- the interior volume of a barrel is much greater than the surface-area of the inside of the barrel itself-- remember the square-cube relationship of surface-to-volume.

Using wood chips would necessarily require longer steeping/aging times, so you could start with the singed wood chips first, letting the flavor accumulate as you wish, then near the end, add the more volatile ingredients. 

And I had a thought:  you could singe your chips using a simple blowtorch:  soak them in water first, then torch the chips until they burn into a charcoal color along the highlights.   Torch-singing the interiors of wet barrels is the traditional method used today, for adding flavor.   And I see no reason why you couldn't use whole boards, rather than chips, trapped down in the liquid by the lid (the board wedged diagonally in the container).

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If you are willing to skip the "natural" stuff?  You can go to the artificial instead--- confectionery candies could be used in various ways to flavor your drinks, depending on what you're after.   Obviously, these would also impart (possibly unwanted) colors too, as most candies have a boat-load of artificial dyes to give them pretty appearances.  But if you could source some all-natural, "home made" candies, these'll have fewer colors added.

And it may seem counter-intuitive, but canned fruits can be had in nearly any type of fruit you want-- and steeping in liquor softens them anyway, so why not experiment with canned fruits first?  If you like the mix, you could try to get real fresh varieties for a more intense flavor.

[Opsa]

We have orchard friends who always make cherry infused vodka. They just add fresh cherries and some sugar to the vodka and then let it sit until Yuletime. It's very festive. As in crawl-to-the-bathroom festive if you're not moderate with it!

They made it with black raspberries one year and it was out of this world!

I love spicy things. I wonder if you could put crystalized ginger into vodka? Or maybe rum would work better.

[Aggie]

And it may seem counter-intuitive, but canned fruits can be had in nearly any type of fruit you want-- and steeping in liquor softens them anyway, so why not experiment with canned fruits first?  If you like the mix, you could try to get real fresh varieties for a more intense flavor.

I have several hundred (pounds of) good reasons to use fresh fruits out in the yard.

The Concords grapes should give a highly flavoured and coloured end product, especially since I'm going to use only the skins to start. The advantage of using fresh fruit is that many of the esters and other volatiles that give fruit its magnificent fragrance flash off quickly during processing, but are generally soluble in ethanol. Vodka is strong enough to dissolve a good portion of these and essentially 'fix' them in the bottle.

I'm mulling over doing some sort of a liqueur with roasted pears, too.

As for wood and spicy bark in rum?  The Ponderosa bark is doing a great job of both the wood notes and the vanilla.  I chucked a few cloves, some mace, one allspice berry and a chunk of cinnamon in to see what will happen.  It's a small batch at the moment.   For precision, I'd probably be best to put all the spices in separate jars of rum (recording the spice:rum ratio of each mix) and then blending the resulting sub-rums to taste, while recording volumes.  A little back-calculation would produce a theoretically ideal mix of spices, by weight. Also, a spiced rum concentrate could be prepared in bulk, and then just a little of the very strong extract added to a new bottle of plain rum. That could be done cheapest and most effectively with high-proof (151) rum as the concentrate.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Excellent methodology you have there-- keeping track and all that.

But beware-- you may not get the same results if you had started out with separate batches of single-flavor rums, then combined the finished rums into a blend, than if you put all the separate ingredients into a larger batch.

Chemistry is a funny thing, sometimes, and you may get, during the steeping process, undesired co-mingling or interaction of your separate flavorants.  If you wish to repeat your exact process, you'd need to age the flavors separate, and blend as you did initially.

But you are quite correct-- there are volatile essences that are always lost, if the fruit/ingredients are processed/cooked.   I remember the first time I had fresh-ground coffee, from fresh-roasted beans.  It wasn't really the same drink I was accustomed to... processing had removed some very flavorful (and very light) oils.   An in these cases?  French pressed, or use a metal-foil filter is a must.  Paper filters will absorb many of these oils, keeping that flavor out of the final drink.    Not that you'd notice, if you buy the pre-ground stuff-- those oils are already long gone... 

So you may wish to experiment with a smaller batch, if you co-mingle your flavorings, is all I'm saying.   Sometimes those flavors get up a party all on their own, and the results may not be what you expected (but they may be just as good, or better)...



Sounds like fun!

[pieces o nine]

I bought a book ages ago on homemade liqueurs; I tried a couple and moved on. Reading this thread has piqued my curiosity to start prepping something amusant  for Yule!




[edit] I had accidentally posted this to the wrong thread!    [/edit]

[Lindorm]

Wouldn't using grape peels only give a astringent bitterness to the resulting liqueur? I suppose it depends a lot on the variety of grapes used, though.

I have experimented with quite a few flavoured liqueurs and spirits, with some experiments being more brave than others.

Lemongrass and lime peel in vodka was a very good combination. A nice spicy citrusy flavour, and since it was made without any sugar, it had a nice crisp dryness to it.

My Habanero and Scotch Bonnet-laced rum has given quite a few people acute respiratory problems -though once you get over those, it does have a nice chile flavour. Too bad I am about the only one who thinks so...

Wormwood, allspice, peppercorns, cardamom pods, coriander seeds and cassia bark are a good starting point for a herbal bitter on the lines of Strega or Underberg. You will probably need a splash of simple syrup, too.

[Opsa]

Wow, cool flavors. What do you use for the base of the bitters?

[Aggie]

My Habanero and Scotch Bonnet-laced rum has given quite a few people acute respiratory problems -though once you get over those, it does have a nice chile flavour. Too bad I am about the only one who thinks so.

The Bhut Jolokia I grew this year would have been good for that. They didn't fully develop their potential heat (didn't get past green), but were the tastiest, fruitiest peppers I've eaten, similar to a Scotch Bonnet.

Wouldn't using grape peels only give a astringent bitterness to the resulting liqueur? I suppose it depends a lot on the variety of grapes used, though.

My first run with the grape peels came out a little bitter but with intense flavour. It'd have sufficed as an ingredient in a Flaming Homer.  

After a month, I strained out the peels and replaced them with fresh Concord grapes. This morning, I noticed that the jar had started bubbling over.  It looks like some limited fermentation has happened in the fresh grapes. I stirred it up, squeezing out the grape juice, and it now tastes amazing, more like fresh grapes than wine but more or less the same range of alcohol. I was planning to add sugar, but don't think it's going to be necessary.

Should I remove the grape solids at this point, or let it go for another week or few?  


Oh, I also started a batch of roasted pear liqueur in October; I used vodka again, but think it might eventually benefit from some dark spirits. Maybe rum, and throw in some spices... nutmeg and cardamom? Something subtle in small amounts, the pears had their own spicy flavour to start with.

[Opsa]

I admire your home winemaking project.

I found this online, but it doesn't say exactly when to remove the solids.

This site says:
"This is why when a winery makes a red wine, the skin and pulp are actually in the fermentation along with the grape's juice. Once the fermentation has almost completed, all the fibrous solids of the grapes are then removed."

[Aggie]

I started out making an infusion, not wine, so the fermentation is a bit of a surprise.

Concords are not known for making good wine, so I may have to stop it.  The mixture went buoyant again today.

[Opsa]

Never mind what they say about Concords! I'd go ahead and remove the solids. If it tastes as good as you say it does (and I wish I could try it!) you've made good wine.

[Aggie]

I did pull out the solids today, as the grape juice seems to be watering down the final product.

[Opsa]

Are you going to let it age, or drink it new?

[Aggie]

Bottle it up until Christmas, and try decant it off the lees, I suspect.

[Opsa]

Very cool! Let us know how it turns out. I'd love to hear a full tasting description.