Homemade Liqueurs

[aggieterpkatie]

but the cherries are pathetic this year.

My cherries were pathetic too!!! I've got a sour cherry tree in the back of the pasture and usually it's loaded. Not many on the tree this year. We also have a very old, large tree that has small black cherries on it, and there were hardly any on it either!! I was so disappointed.

 

[Wifezilla]

Bad year for apples here. Looking like a good year for grapes though.

 

[Leta]

i've always wanted to build a still so we could distill some of our homemade wines and do a blended brandy.

cheers

doc

You don't need a still.

We made 5 gallons of white lightening with some very basic homebrew equipment. We trashpicked a glass carboy, spent under $10 on an airlock and some aquarium tubing, $5 of a package of SuperYeast, and another $4 on 10# of sugar. All this, plus 5 gallons of water, and six weeks later, moonshine.

We made a whole bunch of vanilla extract, lesser amounts of lemon, lime, orange, and mint extracts, and made some holiday liqueurs. We got a recipe book and made syrups, which we then combined with the white lightening and bottled them. They get tons better with age. We have about a gallon of moonshine left, and I've been using it for DIY dry cleaning, which I learned about here.

 

[~gd]

i've always wanted to build a still so we could distill some of our homemade wines and do a blended brandy.

cheers

doc

You don't need a still.

We made 5 gallons of white lightening with some very basic homebrew equipment. We trashpicked a glass carboy, spent under $10 on an airlock and some aquarium tubing, $5 of a package of SuperYeast, and another $4 on 10# of sugar. All this, plus 5 gallons of water, and six weeks later, moonshine.

We made a whole bunch of vanilla extract, lesser amounts of lemon, lime, orange, and mint extracts, and made some holiday liqueurs. We got a recipe book and made syrups, which we then combined with the white lightening and bottled them. They get tons better with age. We have about a gallon of moonshine left, and I've been using it for DIY dry cleaning, which I learned about here.

Leta I don't know what to call what you brewed, but it is not moonshine! Moonshine is distilled and comes from the still at about 190 proof and cut to a strength that is drinkable. about the best you could produce your way is maybe 40-50 proof. enough alcohol to have some kick and make extracts and liqueurs which usually are low alcohol products. but not brandy. What you did is probably legal moonshine is not.

 

[k15n1]

I think stills are illegal.

The home-made ethanol sounds great. But I'd be surprised if you could get over 20% alcohol without a still.

How did you make the extracts?

 

[Bubblingbrooks]

Wild black cherries that grow in New England. I think that is what they are called. They grow along a central stem and the trees can become quite huge. They are inedible raw, very sour. The chipmunks gather the pits and bury them everywhere so we have a lot of cherry trees on our property and in the surrounding area.

those are the kind that you make cough syrup out of!
Sure wish we had them up here...

 

[Neko-chan]

I think it's fine to make your own still, you just can't sell it or the booze. At least, that seems to be okay here. FIL was talking about wanting to make whiskey.

I snurched the kiwi liquer recipe, and see if I can't come up with something nice.

 

[Leta]

Oh, we just call it moonshine. People understand that term for whatever reason, when they hear "white liquor" they ask if it's rum or vodka. It's more like less-strong Everclear, but, again, that description just seems to confuse people.

Extract making is dead simple. You take a vanilla bean pod and stick it in a jug of white liquor, and screw the cap on tightly. For mint, you just stuff a bunch of mint sprigs in. Orange, lemon, and lime, you take a zester to the fruit (ideally organic) and zest into a square of doubled cheesecloth. When you have a couple tablespoons of zest, tie the cheesecloth up into a little bag and put it in a pint jar full of booze. The longer it sits, the stronger the flavor gets.

 

[doc_gonzo]

the legality of stills varies from state to state. here in Ar they are illegal unless you use an addative to render your brew undrinkable, ie. ethanol. now where's the fun in that??? still, (no pun intended) a little experimentation may be in order. several of our wine making books have recipies (sp) for the vodka and fruit method for flavoured brandies. we have a mango kiwi batch in the planning stages.

leta, your method is for a stout wine. dawn and i did a pear wine last fall that came out at about 22%, still very dry and slightly blushed from leaving the skin, seeds, and stems in on the primary ferment. we were very patient with our racking and wound up crystal clear at the final bottling.

cheers

doc

 

[Leta]

Hmm, we've made stout fruit wines before, but they were nothing like the white liquor. Also, the white liquor we made was stronger, close to 30% alcohol. I'm not really sure, I just followed the instructions on the packet of Super Yeast.