One of my favorite summer drinks is taking a shot of fruit liqueur, putting it in a tall glass with some ice, and filling it up with seltzer. It's fruity and sparkly and bubbly and the perfect summer drink. Now, you can easily buy these liqueurs pre-made at most bottle stores, and lots of them are both reasonably priced and yummy.
I, however, am crazy, and like making my own. Right now I only have blueberry and strawberry in my cupboard but I'm planning on increasing the variety and quantity in my bottle cupboard, all thanks to my grandmother's recipe.
Vovo’s Liqueur
1 ½ litre alcohol
1 ½ litres water
1 ½ Kg sugar
120 ml Essence
1. Pour the cold water and sugar in a pot and bring it to
the boil, stirring until the sugar is dissolved.
2. Let it boil for 15 minutes.
3. Take pot
away from the stove, add essence and then alcohol and mix very well.
Now, I don't use essence...because I prefer fresh fruit. So, I've adapted this recipe a) to include fresh fruit and b) to make a half quantity, which produces approximately 2.5 bottles of liqueur. I've also converted into US measurements to make it easier for my American friends!
Carla's Half Liqueur
750 mL/25.4 fl oz alcohol
750 mL/25.4 fl oz water
750 g/26.5 oz sugar
1 lb fruit
1. Clean and chop the fruit. You can leave raspberries, blackberries and blueberries whole, but citrus should be segmented and have the casing removed, apricots should be diced, and strawberries cut into smaller pieces.
2. Pour the cold water and sugar into a large, heavy frying pan, add the fruit, and bring it to the boil, stirring until the sugar is dissolved.
3. Once boiling, knock the heat down a notch, and let boil for 15 minutes.
4. Take off the heat and let cool.
5. Once no longer dangerously hot, line a large sieve with damp paper towels and place in a bowl or jug; strain fruit and syrup.
6. Save the strained fruit to put on yoghurt or ice cream.
7. Fill each bottle with 1.5 cups of syrup and 1.5 cups of alcohol. (Last bottle usually has about 1 cup of syrup, so use 1 cup alcohol.)
8. Shake to mix, label, and store. It should sit for at least 6 weeks, shaken occasionally to ensure good mixing. Best after two years.
Now that the recipes are out of the way (I've been told some people find it VERY annoying to have to scroll though a bunch of pictures to get to the recipe) I have a bunch of pictures for anyone who wants visual aids before making this for the first time. It's not terribly complicated, but it does get much easier with practice.
Water and sugar into pan; do be careful of spillage. This is a VERY sticky recipe!
If you, like me, use bowls to measure everything, and find that your favorite bowls are too small to hold 750g of sugar...then do 550 and 200! (Ish...)
Texas pink grapefruits! I ended up only using two (approx 13 oz), we'll see in six weeks if that was a good choice or not.
Peeling and segmenting and taking the skin off the segments is definitely the cruddy part of this recipe. Makes doing whole berries seem like a breeze in comparison!
Seriously, a pain.
It's nearly 13 oz, so just short of a pound.
And dump it on in to the pan with the rest and choose your favorite spatula for a sugary, splatter-y job.
It's VERY important to keep an eye on everything while it's cooking and stir regularly. Boiling sugar is a very dangerous game, and both my mom and I have incurred some nasty burns while working with it. (Although, not this recipe. Mostly when we were making fudge or windowpane candy.)
Take it off the heat and let it cool before you try to strain it!! One of the reasons I use this pan is because it has handles on either side which allows me a lot of control while pouring. I highly suggest you do the same.
You don't want your paper towels so damp they're soaking, just damp so that they allow the syrup through more quickly.
It's really hard arranging the damn paper towels so that every part of the sieve is covered. Three pieces is probably smarter than two.
Make sure you empty the pouring bowl regularly (or you can use a jug) so that more syrup/juice will leak out from the fruit in the sieve.
You can leave it to drip for hours if you really want. (Assuming there aren't animals, children or bugs that will attack it!) I went shopping at this point because I needed toilet paper and paper towels.
I always save the fruit for yoghurt or ice cream. Doing the strawberry on chocolate ice cream is one of the most incredible things you'll ever taste! Also, don't fuss if a lot is caught on the paper towels. Rather fruit on the paper than paper in your fruit.
Here comes the fun part. And by fun, I mean sticky.
Syrup first.
Then add the liquor. You can see the line where the two meet!
Ta-da!
You can buy pre-made stick on labels (for garage sales, I think?) but I never, ever remember, so I use index cards, which I always have lying around the house, and Elmer's glue. Just cut a single card into thirds and you're good to go! You don't need MUCH glue, but you will have to press and hold the card to the bottle and keep an eye for when the corners curl up. Just press them down a couple times and they should stick eventually, and dry in that position.
And there you have it! Two and a half bottles of your very own fruity liqueur which you can drink straight, on the rocks, or mixed with something fizzy, after the short, short six-week waiting period!
