Black elderberry tinctures at home – 4 recipes

No, well, how to “buzz”, rather “buzz a little” – such drinks are classified as conditionally medicinal, so it is not recommended to lap them in large quantities. However, a couple of glasses, in the evening after a busy day, and in a good company, certainly will not interfere with a healthy person, especially since elderberry tinctures and liqueurs have an excellent, very rich taste, wonderful aroma and amazing lilac-black color. Beautiful, fragrant, extraordinary – the most something to savor a little bit!

Elderberry is a very common, and most importantly, affordable, wild-growing ingredient for homemade alcohol. Romovy already has a recipe for elderberry wine, and first-class brandy is also made from this berry (for example, Bez Cherny by the Czech company Rudolf Jelinek and a lot of homemade variations). Making black elderberry tincture at home is much easier than wine or moonshine – the main thing is to have the berry itself in sufficient quantities, a high-quality alcohol base, a few additional ingredients – and everything will work out!

In the article about elderberry wines, we have already briefly touched upon the poisonousness of this plant. I repeat here again – ripe, completely black berries are safe for health. Poisonous, firstly – unripe, green elderberry. Secondly – red elderberry berries, which have a completely different color – you can’t go wrong. And thirdly, plant seeds that contain sambunigrin glycoside, which releases hydrogen cyanide during hydrolysis, which is also ordinary hydrocyanic acid, which decomposes, for example, when heated. So the conclusion is this: either we squeeze the juice from the elderberry and use only it, or we simply boil the berries, splitting the blueberry. In the second case, the drink will also be enriched with phenolic compounds responsible for the almond flavor. By the way, the effect of hydrocyanic acid on the body also weakens sugar, and it is present in all recipes for homemade elderberry tinctures below.

Czech tincture of black elderberry with spices

In Eastern Europe, elderberry is respected and some of it is used, including for making homemade alcohol. The Czech recipe is a time-tested classic. Spices are used quite ordinary and affordable, the basis of the alcohol base is vodka, the only ingredient with which difficulties may arise is rum. However, it is only 100 ml here, so, ultimately, if you exclude rum from the recipe, you are unlikely to feel any special changes.

The recipe uses pure elderberry juice, pitted, that is, completely safe for health. However, it still needs to be boiled for about 15 minutes – to be sure. Elderberry juice is squeezed out easily even with your hands – there should be no problems. So, bring the juice with sugar and spices to a boil and cook for a quarter of an hour, after which – cover with a lid and insist for about a day. We filter the finished “compote”, add alcohol to it and pour it into a jar, which we send to infuse in a dark, warm place for a whole month. After that, the almost ready tincture of black elderberries on vodka should be filtered if necessary, and that’s all – you can start tasting!

Polish tincture of black elderberries in alcohol and wine

The Poles in their love for the original and free product – elderberry, are in no way inferior to the Czechs. However, this recipe is more inventive and interesting, besides, you don’t have to extract juice from elderberry – it will separate itself when boiled in wine and sugar syrup.

1. Carefully sort the elderberry, throwing out green and unripe, as well as rotten and moldy berries, rinse in cold water and transfer to a saucepan. There also send lemons cut into quarters, cinnamon, cloves and star anise, sugar, pour everything with a mixture of water and wine.
2. Boil the mixture and boil over low heat for about 30 minutes, stirring constantly. When all the sugar has dissolved, close tightly and leave to cool for several hours (overnight).
3. Now the broth needs to be filtered through gauze, the berries are slightly squeezed. Dissolve citric acid in a small amount of boiling water and add it to the broth, along with alcohol, stir everything properly.
4. Now the future tincture can be poured into a jar, so that later it can be additionally filtered through cotton wool, or directly into bottles – if aesthetics are not particularly important to you. Insist at least three months, better – more.

Holunderlikör: German elderberry tincture

Delicious, light, sweet liquor with a rich lilac-black color and a slight additional aroma of almonds – however, not from the elderberry, but from the apricot kernels that we will add to the drink. For example, Amaretto liqueur is made with this ingredient – read the article about it, in the comments there is a whole discussion about hydrocyanic acid with the participation of a real chemist.

Of course, with a strong desire, you can prepare this tincture from black elderberries and vodka, but this, of course, is not a cake at all. The sorted and washed elderberry is placed in a saucepan with water, brought to a boil and boiled, this time for 1 hour. Slightly cooled “compote” should be poured into another bowl, the rest of the berries should be squeezed out. Now boil the broth again, add sugar and apricot kernels to it, cook, stirring, until the sugar dissolves. Pour rum directly into the boiling mixture, immediately turn off the heat, close the lid and wrap it tightly with a towel.

When the mixture has cooled to room temperature, it will need to be poured into a jar and set aside in a warm, dark place for two weeks. After this period – decant, discard the nucleoli, if necessary – filter and sweeten, bottle and send to a cool place. You can try again in 2-3 months.

“Black Potion” – elderberry balm without heat treatment of berries

Well, finally, another method! According to the recipe for this homemade elderberry tincture for alcohol (by the way, again Polish), we only need elderberry juice, in addition, the composition includes dried flowers of the same black elderberry (they also make independent tinctures, which we will definitely talk about sometime in another time). The tincture is rich, with a very bright taste and healing properties, so do not overdo it, even if the drink turns out to be very tasty. And that is exactly how it will be!

You can experiment with the last three ingredients – put more or less, add other favorite spices. How to make elderberry balm? Much easier than liquor or tincture! We dissolve honey in the juice, throw spices there, fill everything with alcohol and set aside in a dark place for six weeks. Shake the jar periodically. After the set time, we filter the infusion, if there is a lot of turbidity in it, then we filter it through a cotton wool or paper filter. Next – rest in bottles for at least two or three months. That’s it, our black elderberry tincture balm is ready to use!