Making Fruit Liqueurs

[freemotion]

My next project! Fresh, local fruit will be coming in soon....and next year, my new raspberries should be producing. Here is how it is made:

Cut up, core, pit fresh fruit, about a pound....anything that appeals to you, or a mixture. (Lemon won't keep well and needs to be used up more quickly...a month or two.)

Put it in a two-quart jar with 3 cups vodka. Put in a dark cupboard and shake or stir once a week for about a month.

Strain out the fruit. Toss the fruit to the pigs and put the flavored vodka in a bottle with a tight cap, with room for:

Make a simple syrup with the 1.25 c sugar and 1.5 c water, cool, and add to the liqueur. Add a bit at a time and taste it, stop when it is sweet enough for you.

Age in a dark place for 6 months, flavor will continue to improve.

I plan to try melon and peach, and I saw plums that looked nice at the local farm stand. I may mix elderberries in with something else when they start ripening, for some great color.

 

[Wifezilla]

Just keep the lemon stuff in the freezer. Limoncello....yyuuummmmmm

 

[freemotion]

Never thought of that, great idea! Lemons will be on my next Whole Foods list!

 

[Wifezilla]

I have a bunch of zest in a bag in the freezer. I keep forgetting to buy vodka

 

[~gd]

My next project! Fresh, local fruit will be coming in soon....and next year, my new raspberries should be producing. Here is how it is made:

Cut up, core, pit fresh fruit, about a pound....anything that appeals to you, or a mixture. (Lemon won't keep well and needs to be used up more quickly...a month or two.)

Put it in a two-quart jar with 3 cups vodka. Put in a dark cupboard and shake or stir once a week for about a month.

Strain out the fruit. Toss the fruit to the pigs and put the flavored vodka in a bottle with a tight cap, with room for:

Make a simple syrup with the 1.25 c sugar and 1.5 c water, cool, and add to the liqueur. Add a bit at a time and taste it, stop when it is sweet enough for you.

Age in a dark place for 6 months, flavor will continue to improve.

I plan to try melon and peach, and I saw plums that looked nice at the local farm stand. I may mix elderberries in with something else when they start ripening, for some great color.

Why give the fruit to the pigs? If it was fit to eat to start with The Booze shouldn't have changed it that much, the fruit will have absorbed much of the ahcohol So it should be eaten in small amounts. Our old family recipie calls for rock crystal sugar to be added at the same time as the fruit, the juice pulled from fruit dissolves it and you don't have the dilution effect of the water from the simple syrup. Grandma always called it 'cherry smash' and drank a tablespoonfull whan she felt the need. Cheers!

 

[Wifezilla]

Isn't the fruit basically "rumtopf"? It is supposed to be really good on ice cream.

 

[freemotion]

Ooooo, I like the way you both think!!!

I thought it would be fun to have drunk pigs, but why waste good stuff on them? Wouldn't that be providing alchohol to minors, anyways?

When I was a kid, my dad made a bad batch of beer...it was fizzy like Alka Seltzer. The pigs got a bottle a day until it was gone. Them were some happy piggies!

 

[MsPony]

So when I want to make rasberry chocolate cake I just add the aged liquid to the cake?

Yum. So excited.

 

[SKR8PN]

Ooooo, I like the way you both think!!!

I thought it would be fun to have drunk pigs, but why waste good stuff on them? Wouldn't that be providing alchohol to minors, anyways?

When I was a kid, my dad made a bad batch of beer...it was fizzy like Alka Seltzer. The pigs got a bottle a day until it was gone. Them were some happy piggies!

Feeding booze to pigs would be alcohol abuse and is classified as a mis-demeaner.


The more I miss, the meaner I get!
(we really do need a rimshot emoticon! )

 

[sufficientforme]

I have had peach and cherry going for three weeks now winter shall be fabulous at our house!