Home-made liqueur thread?

[BernardSmith]

Might there be any interest in creating a new topic dealing with the making of fruit, nut, bean and spice liqueurs?

 

[GreginND]

I think it's not a bad idea. There are lots of great recipes out there for steeping fruits in vodka or other spirits and making things like limoncello, etc. I do think we need to be careful not to digress into discussions of illegal distillation.

 

[jumby]

I make homemade limencello and Fragole all the time. Being Italin, both wine making and liqueure making have always been a tradiation in our family. I just bottled these. Saluti! View attachment 55605 View attachment 55605

 

[BernardSmith]

100% agree with you and , indeed, the possibility of someone raising issues of distillation was one reason why I thought that the topic of home made liqueurs was never covered but there is absolutely no reason for anyone making liqueurs at home to talk about distillation, anymore than there is when people discuss "fortified wines" or adding spirits to a wine to halt fementation. Basically, liqueurs is all about extracting flavor and 'nose, ' and color, using spirits and then adding sugar to sweeten the extract. But as a side issue , certainly among mead makers there is some interest in using nuts and coffee beans to add significant elements of flavor and I think there is a great deal of potential overlap between extracting flavors in secondary fermentation (using the alcohol in the mead) and using vodka etc to extract flavors - and if folk know how to make say, Frangelico (hazelnut liqueur) then using pecans or chestnuts or hazelnuts or pistachios etc in mead (or wine) might then be seen as not so challenging

 

[BernardSmith]

I make homemade limencello and Fragole all the time. Being Italin, both wine and liqueure have always been a tradiation in our family. I just bottled these. View attachment 55606 View attachment 55604 View attachment 55605 View attachment 55605

Those look quite delicious. I often make limoncello and a version of Khalua. And last night I just bottled some mulberry liqueur, some chocolate pecan and some chestnut. Tonight I am set to bottle a licorice liqueur ( a cousin of Sambuca) and I am experimenting with heather to see if I can make a sibling of Drambuie and orange zest to make a home made "Cointreau" but I certainly do not make batches as large as yours. Depending on the substrate (the fruit or nuts etc) I may aim for a quart of liqueur and sometimes two.

 

[joeswine]

Thread goes hand and hand with making a Fpac.

 

[BernardSmith]

So here's a question: If I needed to use fruit juice to make a liqueur rather than the fruit itself is there a rule of thumb ratio of juice to alcohol I could use that would balance the need for sufficient fruit flavor with the need for sufficient final ABV (I assume that I would simply add the sugar source to the juice and not to any additional water. I am thinking that perhaps 1/3 juice to 2/3 spirits might be in order but has anyone worked with juice in this context? Does juice work or do I need to concentrate the juice by freezing and then thawing it to increase the intensity of the flavor and reduce the volume of water? Thoughts? Thanks

 

[joeswine]

Learn to make an extract.,.read making an extract on the thread making an fpac..
Once the extract is made the rest is simple syrup and everkleer or vodka

 

[BernardSmith]

Learn to make an extract.,.read making an extract on the thread making an fpac..
Once the extract is made the rest is simple syrup and everkleer or vodka

Thanks joeswine. I did check out your thread. I make extracts - and they are good. I think, though, that fpacs and liqueurs are not one and the same. A liqueur, in my opinion, is a sweetened extract, and by extract I mean a source of flavor and color and aroma where the essential oils have been released from substrates by the use of alcohol as a solvent. You seem to use heat and water to extract flavor etc from fruit and you refer to what you have extracted in that way as an "fpac". but then you also have a section on extracts which uses fruits and flowers steeped in alcohol to extract flavors etc but not juice itself and that - the use of juice to make an extract - is exactly what I am asking about...

 

[joeswine]

A natural extract , example:
1 ball jar, the zest of 4 lemons ,add the zest and acholó of your choice let it sit for a month , ready to use.
As far as using juice, I've never used it.
Not enough concentration of flavor, nor have I ever heard of it being used.

 

[BernardSmith]

I tend to use more zest eg, with a version of triple sec I have in a mason jar - I have the zest of about 15 oranges, an ounce of bitter orange zest, and about 750 ml of vodka. I will add simple syrup (1:1 sugar and water) in about 30 days and see if the liqueur is ready for straining.
But with regard to using juice, I tend to agree with you that there may not be enough concentration of flavor which is why I am thinking that using a concentrate MIGHT POSSIBLY be an option. In any event I have gotten hold of a bottle of Torani syrup and plan on experimenting with this to see how well (or not) this might work: Bench testing would seem to me to be the way to go - in other words, I need to make a handful of samples using different amounts of the syrup mixed with the same volume of vodka and then after a week or so check out the difference in flavor profiles and proceed from there.