Strawberry Liqueur

It's needless to say that strawberry is a very popular flavor. I love strawberry flavors and when I decided to make a strawberry liqueur I had no idea what to expect as I had never tried a store-bought strawberry liqueur before. I've had so many strawberry flavored sweet foods and that I guess that is what I expected, but I know well enough now that with alcohol infusion the flavors you expect don't always come through.

I chose to go organic with this recipe, and I will be trying to do this more often. I've read too much about the fungicides and pesticides on conventional ingredients to ignore organics when they are available.

Finding strawberry liqueur recipes was easy around the net and they were all very similar. Cut up a bunch of strawberries and cover them with alcohol, add spices, honey, etc. I wanted to keep it simple so I took from the simplest recipes and made my own variant.

Follow along!

 Homemade Strawberry Liqueur recipe #1

Ingredients:

• 3 pints organic strawberries
• 1/2 cup clover honey
• 1/2 cup simple syrup (or just white sugar and water to make the syrup)
• 4 cups 80 proof vodka
• large, seal-able jar for infusing

1. It's important to note that my strawberries sat in the fridge until they were mushy and probably close to a state where some people wouldn't eat them. Despite the mushiness and their appearance, most fruit and berries are still perfectly fine to eat when it looks bad on the outside (sometimes even better tasting).

2. Quarter all of the strawberries, place into the infusing jar or container.

3. Pour 4 cups of 80 proof vodka over the strawberries. This should cover the strawberries

4. Seal infusing container and let steep for 3 - 4 weeks.  Shake up the container every few days, or at least once a week.

5. Make up a small batch of simple syrup (at least 1/2 cup) then combine with 1/2 cup clover honey. I personally cooked up the simple syrup on the stove and added the clover honey after I had turned off the heat and let it cool to just warm. Set aside the sweet mixture to cool. It's important to note that you will only use 3/4 cup of this mixture.

6. Strain and filter the strawberry and vodka mixture

7. Add 3/4 cup only of the sweet mixture to the strained and filtered strawberry vodka. Stir or shake well to combine.

8. Place the final mixture in an aging container to sit at least a month. Enjoy after aging!

Sipping, smelling and thinking

Strawberry liqueur - almost.. whiskey colored?

This liqueur won't disappoint the eyes. Red, almost amber-red if that is possible. Depending on the lighting you'll get a orange-red to an amber-red. It'll look great in a decorative bottle or gift wrappings.

It's worth noting that at the time of this review the Strawberry liqueur has aged nearly 1 year and 3 months. I got lazy for a long while and haven't been writing much.

Floral is what I think when it hits my nose. Flowers, bouquet, maybe some orange and spice type notes. It's fairly subtle and not too strong, has a hint of acidity to the aroma. This type of aroma I think is polarizing; some may find it sickly and others may be really attracted to it.

The interesting thing about this homemade Strawberry liqueur is that it doesn't taste like strawberries. You may have noticed that about many fruit flavored foods and drinks. Often it is some component of the flavor that is passed through in processing, but never the entire flavor or smell of the food in it's natural state.

In the case of this liqueur I think it does carry a lot of strawberry flavor. The tart and acidity of the strawberries are carried into the liqueur in a very balanced way. The clover honey sweetens it just enough and doesn't overpower the acid tart berry flavor. Alcohol bite is hidden enough that even a new drinker might enjoy this straight or on ice.

Oxygen Exposure

During the aging, I did open this liqueur a few times to taste it. I'll say that within the first few months it wasn't too appealing to me. At first it was much too acidic and the more subtle flavors didn't come through. After mellowing for nearly a year now I think its definitely near a peak. My wife and I both enjoy it right now, which is unusual because she normally gravitates towards really sweet drinks and I enjoy a range of bitter, sour and tart drinks.

Opening this one several times before testing may have changed the flavor drastically compared to having a sealed bottle. I need to start double batching and using many small permanently sealed bottles. That way I can try them at different points without exposing the whole batch.

Concluding

Finally, I think this would be good straight, or as a mixer, though I'm leaning more towards this one being an after-dinner sipping liqueur. If you mix this, it'll be hard to not hide the floral notes and you may end up with a more solely acidic or tart flavor add-in to your cocktail.

I'll definitely be making this one again! Going to enjoy finishing off this bottle over the next few months.

If you try this strawberry liqueur recipe, please let me know how it comes out for you!

Frangelico Liqueur

Today we look at another classic liqueur, Frangelico. Similar to my last review on Southern Comfort, this is one of those liqueurs you see all the time but maybe have not tried. Sad though, since Frangelico has been around 300 years you should have had plenty of time to try it!

Like Chartreuse, Benedictine and others, Frangelico's origin also involves monks which usually ends up with deliciousness.

Background:

Frangelico is a Noisette and herb flavored liqueur. You might be unfamiliar with Noisette and that is because it is french for "Hazelnut" or "made from Hazelnut".

This ancient liqueur is produced in the Piedmont region of Italy, with origins dating as far back as 300 years. It is believed to have originated with Christian monks living in the area of that time. The name itself coming from one of those same monks, "Fra. Angelico" who resided in the hills of the Piedmont area.

The Frangelico web site has great information on the history and production process. Flavors imparted in this liqueur are set in throughout the production process during distillation and infusion. According to the site, they use local hazelnuts and concentrate the flavor by making a hazelnut distillate and blending this with further hazelnut infusion. All along the way they use various floral and herbal ingredients to add spice and round out the flavor.

Visual:

After being impressed by the unique bottle I expected more of the liquid itself. It's not that its bad looking, it is just a very light color. It has a very light amber-caramel color and when put up to the light it becomes almost a golden liquid.

The bottle on the other hand is awesome. It is designed to have the appearance of a monk wearing his habit, even down to the rope belt. An interesting bit of trivia on the net is that the monk resemblance would seem to represent a Franciscan friar, but Fra Angelico was likely a Dominican friar whom wore different robes. However after reading a description of the Dominican friar's habits, I think that the Franciscan look brings more to mind a "monk". Probably due to many movies having christian monks portrayed in a Franciscan style. Though I also think of the bright-orange wearing Shaolin monks from watching too many kung-fu movies.

Nose:

Ah, do I even need to mention sweet? It is a liqueur after all. When you take a whiff you will first get intense hazelnut then cinnamon and vanilla roll along. All of it is accompanied by not too sweet overtones. A hint of peanut butter is hiding in there somewhere. This could be one of my favorite smelling liqueurs so far.

Taste:

The taste and mouth feel are strange with this one. The taste is buttery in flavor, but not in feel. The feel is almost like water, very light and not very syrupy. It has hints of chocolate, spice, almonds, hazelnuts.

A good thing about the non-syrupy consistency is that the flavor does not stay too long. It is rich up front, but finishes maybe a bit too quick. The flavor does not hang around, but then this is great because it makes easier to drink more!

You definitely want to inhale while drinking this one. The aroma is a big part of the taste. Many liqueurs smell sweet and have a syrupy feel. I'm glad to find this one is different.

Final:

Overall I am very pleased with the Frangelico liqueur. I had no idea what to expect going in and then I was blown away by the taste. Especially the strange non-syrupy finish that I am so used too with other liqueurs.

This would be great for sipping on any time of the day or adding into your coffee and hot chocolate. I'm interested to try it in many cocktails including a recommendation I saw on a forum which was to halve it with fresh squeezed lime juice on ice.

Let me know if you find any cocktails with Frangelico you particularly like and I'll try them out.

Steak 954 Rio Mar

1 1 / 4 ounce black cherry bourbon
1 ounce blackberry-infused St. Germain
1 ounce lemon juice
Dash Angostura bitters
Ice
1 1 /2 to 2 ounces prosecco
3 St. Germain-infused blackberries

"How to make the drink: Put the bourbon, black-berry infused St. Germain, lemon juice and Angostura bitters into a shaker filled with ice. Shake well. Strain into a chilled champagne flute. Add enough prosecco to fill the glass to about an inch from the top. Garnish by floating 3 infused blackberries on top of the drink. Makes 1 serving. — Tracey Broussard"

Found this recipe at the Sun Sentinel You can read about infusing the St-Germain and more in the source article.

St-Germain Liqueur

I think the amazing bottle is really what got my interest, but never the less I had to give this one a try. It was $35 so not too pricey.

Background:

Doing a little reading a about St-Germain is interesting. Turns out it is a flower or floral liqueur made from Elderflowers and various other ingredients. St-Germain contains 100% natural ingredients and no preservatives which is points in my book. Worthy of note as well is the mention that St-Germain has roughly half the sugar of most Liqueurs. Though I have not seen the actual amounts in grams yet.

It imported from France by Maison 6ème Arr., Philadelphia, PA.

On the St-Germain website you can learn that every load of elderflowers they use to make this stuff is hand-picked and then bi-cycled.. yes bi-cycled from the foot hills of the Alps down to a market where they purchase them to make the liqueur.

Visual:

As I said previously, the fancy French bottle is probably what drew my eyes to it. The bottle is really sweet; the label and metal cap all create a really artistic old world look.

The liqueur inside is a pale but golden yellow. It is actually quite inviting. I think the bottle really adds to the color, if it was a simple plain bottle then the pale yellow liquid may have looked less appealing. You don't see many pale yellow colored Liqueurs, or if you do they are in a darker bottle.

Overall a very pleasing and impressive bottle. Lots of French words and it includes a miniature tag-like book with a story about the liqueur.

Nose:

Needless to say, I would go out on a limb and say a floral liqueur should have a good nose. They ARE made with flowers.

St-Germain does not disappoint! It smells like sweet nectar. Honey-dew, sugar, vanilla, pear and melon are all words that came to mind when I take a whiff.

I have to say with this being my first floral liqueur that the smell is good, but it does not smell like it would *taste* good. The flowery smell is strange if you are new to floral liqueurs. That all changes though once you take a sip.

Taste:

Sweet, like any liqueur very sweet. It is hard to separate smell from taste with something as aromatic as this, but some of the nose remains in the taste. You get citrus, orange, lemon along with a nectar type flavor. It's fairly thick and The finish is a bit syrupy for my taste but overall satisfying.

Final:

I like this liqueur. I didn't think I could get into floral liqueurs, but my goal here is to try every liqueur possible. This is really good stuff, I especially like the citrus taste combined with the sweet floral smell. It is very well balanced.

Due to syrupy finish I don't think I could drink much more than a single serving by itself, but it will make a great after dinner drink and an even better mixer. I'm imagining it right now with ginger ale...

For more reading check out

St-Germains Website and the wikipedia page on Elderflower