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Trying for raspberry and blackberry liqueurs

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Chevette Girl

Chevette Girl

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Apr 27, 2010
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Based on Terry Garey's suggestions in "Joy of Home Winemaking". Recipe calls for 1 cup sugar but I thought that sounded a bit extreme for what will yield half of a 750 mL bottle of booze.

Experiment 1: Take a sanitized 1 L mason jar. Fill with 12 oz of fresh raspberries. Add half a cup or so of honey. Top it off with the least expensive vodka I could find at the LCBO. Tightly lid it and shake the hell out of it every couple days.

Experiment 2: Take another sanitized 1 L mason jar. Add 1 lb or so frozen blackberries. Add half a cup of sugar. Top it off with the rest of the bottle of vodka. Tightly lid it and shake the hell out of it every couple days.

 
Chevette Girl said:
Based on Terry Garey's suggestions in "Joy of Home Winemaking". Recipe calls for 1 cup sugar but I thought that sounded a bit extreme for what will yield half of a 750 mL bottle of booze.

Experiment 1: Take a sanitized 1 L mason jar. Fill with 12 oz of fresh raspberries. Add half a cup or so of honey. Top it off with the least expensive vodka I could find at the LCBO. Tightly lid it and shake the hell out of it every couple days.

Experiment 2: Take another sanitized 1 L mason jar. Add 1 lb or so frozen blackberries. Add half a cup of sugar. Top it off with the rest of the bottle of vodka. Tightly lid it and shake the hell out of it every couple days.
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You'd be surprised how much sugar is necessary........

It's worth remembering, that it seems that those liqueur type recipes are trying to ape the commercial equivalents.

Last years sloe gin, well the recipe (from the net) was 1 pint of gin, 1lb of sloes and 8oz of sugar. I too, though that was a lot of sugar - I did speak to a few mates who'd already had experience making sloe gin - it ended up that I reduced the sugar content by half (4oz per pint of liquid).

The result being a very "sherbert like" liqueur, which I don't mind at all. Though I'm intending measuring out exactly how much liquid I've got left and adding a further 2oz of sugar to the pint.

That lot might be worth remembering as while raspberry doesn't have quite the dry, astringent taste of a fresh sloe, they do tend to dominate the flavour and it's probably worth experimenting to get the taste you like.

After all, sweetness/sugariness are relative to the individual. Plus you can add more sugar, it's pretty hard to take it out (unless you've plenty more fruit and vodka).

regards

fatbloke
 
fatbloke said:
After all, sweetness/sugariness are relative to the individual. Plus you can add more sugar, it's pretty hard to take it out (unless you've plenty more fruit and vodka).
Click to expand...

That's what I was thinking, if tasting it makes my face implode :X I can always add more sugar or honey!! I often find the commercial liqueurs to be too syrupy... I like sweet meads, true, but I generally end up diluting most things a little... Except Drambuie. That's fine the way it is...
 
I'm trying it with brandy and blackberries. Using 3 parts berry brandy 1 part water 1/2 part sugar. Frist tests seem promising. But still aging. Am going to try with golden raspberries next.
 
Actually, Drambuie in coffee is pretty good too.

My dad used to open a can of club soda, drink a few mouthfuls, then pour in a shot of Scotch... so in my family there is nothing that constitutes alcohol abuse except spilling it...
 
Umm, extremely pretty?
:rolleyes:
I actually never got around to straining them out. I was going to try to do that before Xmas since it's been over a year and a half... so the mason jars are still sitting on the kitchen wine shelf... looking very pretty with their red and purple liquids and their less vibrantly-coloured fruit.
 
So... um. I'm eating the fruit with vanilla ice cream right now... but I still haven't tried the liqueur. I did filter through coffee filters (seems blackberries make a lot of pectin, took a while). So far I much prefer the raspberries soaked in vodka over the blackberries soaked in vodka and a bit of rum( there wasn't enough vodka for both batches). If I ever do this again it won't involve rum. But I think I was right about the sugar/honey, it didn't need to be twice as sweet as this. Although if I really hate the rummy blackberry one I will try adding more sugar.
 
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