Recommend me some good home-made liqueur recipes

[Barchettaman]

Evening all,

After some pretty exceptional sloe gin and sloe vodka last year, which is being repeated as I write (6kgs sloes plucked and in the freezer), can any of you connoisseurs recommend a favourite fruit-based, home made liqueur to me? Limoncello maybe, or something mandarin based in the run up to the end of the year?

I have access to 95% strength alcohol in the local supermarket which gives the sloe gin a proper kick up the arse.

Thanks all in advance!

[Esders]

Limoncello is easy and always goes down well. There are various ways of doing it but I follow this recipe, which is very easy. http://my-new-stuff.com/my-new-limoncello-recipe/

[951TSE]

Any citrus should work with that Limoncello recipe so orange, mandarin or lime should all work just as well.

Any small fruits like the sloes should respond well to the prick the skin and put in the spirit, shaking every week method. Just do it for the same length of time you're doing the sloes. Cherries, gooseberries, plums perhaps?

Back in the day I made two different types of pepper vodka, one had lightly crushed peppercorns in it. Just needs a strain when finished to get rid of the bits. The slightly more 'adventurous' version was made by pricking a chilli pepper all over and dropping into a bottle of vodka. Again shake it every week for at least a couple of months. Store it in a cupboard. I seem to recall the chilli turned white, then drink carefully. It did seem to go off though so don't keep it more than a couple of months.

Finally if you're not using the soaked sloes for cooking how about a drink called 'slider'. You take the sloes from the gin, so they're now soaked in gin and put them in strong cider, exact recipes can be found on the web.

[Barchettaman]

Thanks chaps.

I plan on reusing the the sloes for our Xmas goose, stuffing the bird with a pound or two of them might result in a tasty roast and interesting gravy.

[C0ffin D0dger]

Bramble Whisky that I made seems quite nice.

Same concept as Sloe Gin except you steep a load of blackberries in Whisky (cheap blended stuff, not single malt) and add some sugar for sweetness. I read that is is best to remove the blackberries after about 6 months otherwise it can start to go a bit woody. Then bottle and let it mature for at least another 6 months but it gets better with age so if you can wait for a year so much the better.

[sjabrown]

I've just made limoncello. Currently getting very sloshed on some of it.

[Pferdestarke]

Good lad. Keep going. Let's have a photo.

[handpaper]

I made chilli vodka the other year; half a pound of chopped Scotch Bonnets in a jar with a bottle of Aldi's second cheapest vodka for a month.
It's a little warm...
Actually it's borderline undrinkable neat - makes a very mean Bloody Mary though.

[Mobile Chicane]

Timely at this point in the year: beech leaf noyau. Reduce the sugar a tad.

http://moremeanthangreenblog.blogspot.co.uk/2009/0...

[Barchettaman]

<disappears into the local woods looking for beech trees>