Apricot liqueur

[magid]

As mentioned, I started infusing vodka with apricots. The first time I Googled for recipes, I found a couple that included a series of steps, not just fruit + booze, though I couldn't find them the second time I went looking, so my 'recipe' was rather seat of the pants.

I sliced up as many apricots as would fit fairly tightly packed into canning jars, then poured 100 proof vodka into the spaces that were left. I started four jars this way: a quart and a pint of plain apricots, a quart of apricots plus some slices of ginger, and a quart of apricots plus some Thai red peppers.

I let them sit for a week and a half (while I went and quilted and crocheted and learned and such), then drained the liquid out of each jar, keeping the batches separate (of course). At this point the alcohol was pale, pale orange, and still harshly alcoholic. Over the next day or two, the color deepened to brown.

I sugared each batch of apricots, and put them back in their jars. After a couple of days macerating this way, the sugar pulling out the alcohoic juice in the fruit, I drained them again, mixing the sweet booze with the first iteration from each batch. I started a second sugar round, mostly for curiosity. Current quantities: somewhere around three-quarters of a quart of the ginger and hot pepper batches (plus the fruit macerating again), and more than a quart of the plain (with half a pint of the sugar-apricot round not fitting into the main apricot batch).

Last night was the first real tasting, and it's pretty good. It amazes me that the texture is right, the sugar giving it the right 'thickness' for a sipping liqueur. The plain apricot has the expected fruitiness. The ginger-apricot has a bit of heat, not a lot. And the pepper-apricot is, um, zingy. Very much so. I might add some of the extra plain apricot sugar round to it, to tone it down a little, balance the heat with more fruit.

Added bonus: sugared boozy fruit, which would probably be good on ice cream, and has already proven good on chicken.

It worked! It actually worked! I may have to do more with this.

Comments

[gingicat]

Go you!

[magid.livejournal.com]

:-)

[fetteredwolf.livejournal.com]

MMM. Can we come over for dinner next Shabbos? ;)

[magid.livejournal.com]

*grin*

[cellio]

Sounds yummy!

Another technique for fruit cordials is to make a sugar syrup and pour that in at the beginning with the booze. I've done that to good effect. I don't know how those results would compare to yours.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I saw at least one recipe that suggested that method. At the time, I wanted to maximize how much fruit I used, and that didn't leave so much room for the booze. If I do this with less fruit, I might put it all in at once.

(A second thought: the one major difference I see is that the method I used didn't have any water, so all the liquid is vodka or fruit juice or liquid sugar. I assume that the intensity of flavor is a bit more because of this.)