ottawa foodies

I have a small bar at home, which is approximately the size of the ones in reasonable sized restaurants. As a great fan of mixed drinks, I appreciate having a large variety of different alcohols so that I may produce a number of interesting concoctions. I have recently been pondering a particular approach for making new ingrediants, thanks got the glory of the internet.

It mostly consists of adding potent alcohol (usually grain alcohol) directly to various flavour-adding components and steeping it for a long while. The strength of the alcohol required would chiefly vary depending on what I wanted to prepare. For instance, something watery such as cherries or sliced peaches could be soaked in some of the very strong alcohol(such as the delightful though pricy 94% stuff I found). If it's 1 part alcohol to 2 parts flavouring, the end result is a stiff but not overwhelming drink suitable for mixed drinks. If the flavouring is more dense, such as cinnamon sticks or cloves for instance, a weaker alcohol could be used for the solution(either diluted 94% or simply the usual 40%). I found it impossible to acquire and of the strong grain alcohol in the LCBO however it is possible to buy it in the SAQ-Depot on the quebec side of the Alexandria bridge if anyone else is interested in this particular experiment.

Has anyone else tried this particular experiment or have ideas for interesting things which could soaked for flavour? My current ideas are fresh fruit (sour cherries for instance), kiwi, lime, cinnamon or cloves. I have a crazy idea of preparing a small amount of ginger-alcohol to function almost as a bitter or use in hot chocolate. Hot peppers are another option.

What are your thoughts and ideas? I do admit that I wanted to make a topic in the category of "Booze".

Jagash, in Sardinia and Corsica it is very common to make lemon, orange and mirte (myrtle I believe) liquor and wine and people usually have a small glass of it before or after dinner. The wine is made by adding the macerated fruit (which has fermented for 10-15 days in a bottle with water) to a simple table wine (red for mirte, white for lemon,orange) along with a bit of sugar in solution. The alcohol is made with grape alcohol similar to the above process for wine.

It turns out excellent and I am trying to think of any Ottawa-valley/Ontario wild plants that could be put to similar use...i guess blueberries and strawberries for one...

This is something that I plan on doing when we've got a house of our home and thus have the shelf space to hold our creations.

Orange is a no-brainer. Soak in 40% with some sugar and flavours of your choosing and you're laughing. Laura Calder made a good-looking coffee-and-orange one on French Food at Home: www.foodtv.ca

I made a large batch of Limoncelo to celebrate my sons first birthday. I used said spirit from SAQ. The product was indeed a potent after dinner treat. I keep a jar of it in the freezer.
I plan to make some mint flavoured Vodka this year to use up some of the mint in my backyard.

Jagash - I got some very helpful information last Fall here on the Forum when I was trying a similar experiment, check out this OF Topic "Infused Vodka" - www.ottawafoodies.com

My host family in Germany made liqueur from peach tree leaves, and from pine sap. Neither were to my taste. But, nonetheless a cool experimetn.

Dried fruit works really well too. I've done dried blueberries, cranberries and a few others

my faves:
(2 weeks infusion time)
vodka + goji berries

vodka + lemon peel + sugar syrup, top off with soda water

these are a bit quicker

rum + instant espresso + coconut milk, touch vanilla = very similar to Sangster's Original Jamaican rum cream

1 pound of fresh ginger pureed with 1 gallon H2O and 1 pound of dark brown sugar, strained.....2 measures ginga juice, 1 measure rum, squeese lime and a measure of soda water....true Jamaican ginger beer

Zym, Dried fruit works well? I would have thought there would be less flavour after the dehydration process and thus, less flavour compared to the fresh stuff.

Usually dried fruit has a more concentrated flavour.

More concentrated, but will fewer volitiles. I suppose more quantity might overcome any changes in quality though.

I bought the grain alcohol and picked up sweet cherries and peaches from the market, having forgotten what I had used as examples in this post. :P I now have a pint and a half of sweet cherries in jars of alcohol as well as a quart of fresh sliced peaches.

Additionally, I have a small bottle which contains whole black peppercorns and strips of ginger soaking in the alcohol. This last one is intended as a bitter and specifically for my beautiful girlfriend who happens to be fanatically fond of both of those ingredients in everything it seems.

I will try out some new combinations later one, once I have more jars from my mother.

My mother used to make plum liqueurs (Umeshu) You can use any fruit of your choice, such as orange, lemon, strawberry, blueberry...
You can buy Umeshu at LCBO, it is very sweet,taste like ice wine.

Basic recipe:
1 kg fruit of your choice, for you,cherry I guess.
0.2kg~1 kg rock crystal sugar (You can find it at asian grocery store)
1.8 liters white liquor (over 35% alcohol) I don't know if you can find white liquor here, so my suggestion is to use vodka.

You need to sterilize a glass jar by filling it with boiling water, rinsing and drying carefully, or use alcohol. Jar should be completely dry.

Wash fruit, culling any fruit with bruises or broken skins. Dry fruit with clean cloth, this is very important.

Carefully and gently layer fruit and sugar in the jar, pour in the liquor. Seal tightly.
Upend the jar once a month until the sugar is completely dissolved.
Remove fruit after 2 months and it is drinkable at 3 months.

My favorite: Strawberry 1kg, 4 lemon(sliced), 200g rock suger, 1.8L vodka.

rock sugar image for your info :)

as a tangent to Aisu's post, today i noticed some Umeshu liqueur @ the LCBO, available for limited time (Richmond store & elsewhere): goes by the name Choya 23.

lcbo.ca

Aisu (or anyone), is this a well-known / respected variety, worth trying?

itchy feet,

Choya is the most famous plum wine company in Japan. I didn't know that I can buy Choya product at LCBO!!! Oh joy!!! I usually buy Gekkeikan (famous sake company in Japan) plum wine (Umeshu) 750 ml, $14.50 as shown on picture.
Choya's Umeshu is 750ml,$31.95! I found it is bit expensive and I have never heard of this particular product "Choya 23", I assume Choya 23 must be made for North American market. I will buy and try it!!!

My friend found non japanese plum wine at LCBO. I don't remember which company makes it. It was in a regular wine bottle. Sweet and light tasted sparkling wine.

Thanks Aisu. I knew from his subject line alone, Jagash's thread would yield good, timely & important information.

Ahh yes, I had found the Plum Gekkeikan plum wine and purchased it quickly as the flavour is astounding. Choya 23 is at the Richmond location? I will pick some up tomorrow on my way back from work.

yup, Richmond Store -- center aisle. Report back, please!

The report back is most favorable, it was delish! There are some unusual flavours in it and it wasn't overly sweet, overall a beautifully balanced drink. I recommend!

Just made a batch of cookies, where I used my home brew vanilla, and they are quite tasty. I used medium rum, and maybe a dozen Madagascar Vanilla beans that have soaked for about 6 weeks now. I think maybe I need to get more beans in there, to increase the vanilla-iness.

I have 2 beans Pete... anything I can do with that? Or should I wait until I have more?

I bought Choya23 today. It comes with 6 plums in a bottle. It tastes so good!!
serve it as chilled, on the rocks, with club soda.

2 recommendations, sounds like a "will try". Thanks Aisu, Jagash.

Compare with Gekkeikan Umeshu, Choya 23 has more intense and fresh green plum scent.
If you know Umeboshi(Salted plum) you can notice this fresh scent of plum every time you drink it. So refreshing. I am glad I bought 2 bottles.

It looks like tea, but I made Umeshu jelly last night.
I also use umeshu for cooking. Marinate Pork belly and/or chicken thigh with Umeshu is my favorite.

The lovely folks at Beau's let me have a bit of the bog myrtle they have for making Bog Water, so I decided to try my hand at this and am making my own bog myrtle aquavit.

It's apparently A Thing The Danish Do, although they call it porse snaps rather than bog myrtle aquavit. I know, eh?

I'm following a recipe I found online (www.lv10.dk).

Anyway, here's the recipe, translated using mostly guesswork, but also an online English-Danish translator:

- Take a bottle of neutral spirit (I'm using Brøndums Klar, which is 40% alcohol sold in Denmark for making your own aquavit)

- Fill it half-way with bog myrtle leaves

- Let steep 4-5 days

- Strain through a coffee filter into a clean bottle

- Let sit for at least a month

- If it's too strong dilute by 1/2 or 1/4, as you see fit

Although it calls for fresh leaves, I'm using dried because that's what I have. I also threw in a couple (four or five) of the little cones that have all that resinous aroma.

This will either make it excellent or unpalatable. I'm not sure which.

I'll let y'all know in a month how it turns out! Talk about a cool Christmas present to myself.

(You know, I'm not sure why it's rotated the wrong way like that, because it's upright when I view it on my computer.)

Momomoto, your photo likely has some (EXIF?) metadata that tells your computer to rotate the picture when displaying. The ImageMagick utilities I use to resize the photo are likely not using this information. :-(

I hope your aquavit turns out!

Not a problem! I think it looks kinda good this way. I'll take a follow-up pic with my real camera instead of my phone is all ;)

Chillie peppers... make hot chocolate with a shot of chillie flavored something.. mm vodka seems wrong for this but rum if its possible to do with .. hmmm must go read.

Thought this would slip-in nicely here...making your own vanilla extract:
Forum - DIY Vanilla Extract

Thanks for the DIY vanilla extract recipe....I'm going to give this a try.

Too lazy to get the camera from the basement; this may be sideways again.

Tonight, exactly thirty days after starting the infusion, I cracked open the bog myrtle aquavit and gave it a try. It was filtered four days after I threw the leaves and stuff in the aquavit.

And, oh lordy, is it tasty. I can't describe it. It's rather complex: sweet and spicy and bitter, with a bit of a high floral note from the cones. An unqualified success, and something I'll probably try to do for quite some time to come!

Thanks for the link over to this page. Is there a shelf life for homemade liqeurs? Do they need to be frozen or refrigerated?