Honeysuckle tincture on vodka, alcohol, moonshine or cognac

“Honeysuckle” – what kind of word is that? Everyone seems to have heard, but few people know what kind of fruit it is and what it is eaten with. Meanwhile, these berries, amazing in flavor, have a very great potential for a moonshiner / winemaker. Honeysuckle tinctures have proven themselves especially well – there is not much fuss with them, and the result is almost always delicious, odorous, beautiful, and sooooo tasty – you can’t confuse it with anything!

Honeysuckle is great for home alcohol experiments. Of course, we are talking only about blue honeysuckle (aka blue) and some other edible subspecies. From the right berries, excellent tinctures are obtained – bitter-spicy, tart, moderately sour, a bit like drinks from blueberries, blueberries, lingonberries – a little bit of everything. Also, excellent wines are made from this fruit (for snobs – “drinking brews”), perhaps there will be a separate article about them at Rum.

Alcohol or vodka tincture on honeysuckle can be prepared in several ways:

• Soak fresh, frozen or dried alcohol-based berries – just a tincture;
• Ferment the honeysuckle so that the juice separates from it more easily, and then pour it with alcohol – this will already be a classic liqueur;
• Pre-boil at a low temperature to soften – such a drink is called a “spottykach”.

It should be recalled that many varieties of honeysuckle contain the poisonous glycoside xylosteine. But to distinguish edible species is not at all difficult – by color. Suitable berries are blue, blue, bluish-gray, blue-black, poisonous – yellow, red, orange.  

With honeysuckle, additives such as cloves-cinnamon-nutmeg-vanilla, rose petals, mint, some citrus fruits – orange, grapefruit, orange, and other wild berries are in harmony: lingonberries, blueberries, kumanika, mountain ash, chokeberry, elderberry and more. You can make tinctures not only on vodka, moonshine or alcohol, but also on the elite – brandy, whiskey, gin. In general, the scope for imagination is unlimited.

Classic tincture of honeysuckle on alcohol

A recipe very common among Polish moonshiners-winemakers, simple and proven many times over. By the way, do you know what the Poles call honeysuckle? No, not “pshe honeysuckle”, but “jagodą kamczacką”, “Kamchatka berry”. This is so, by the way.

How to cook:

In this recipe, it is desirable to use alcohol, not vodka. With such a simple manufacturing method, the strength of vodka is not enough to extract all the taste, color and aroma from honeysuckle. Although, in the absence of a maid, a butler will also do – just the tincture will be weak and more delicate, without pleasant spicy-bitter notes of the stone and other hard parts of the berry.

1. Sort the berries, wash, dry. Put them in a container of a suitable volume (a 2-liter jar is suitable), pour alcohol over it and put in a warm, dark place for 6 weeks. Occasionally, the jar can be shaken to improve maceration.
2. After 1,5 months, drain the infusion. Sprinkle honeysuckle with sugar – it will extract the remnants of flavored alcohol from it. Leave in a warm place until all the sugar turns into syrup – about a week. Shake the jar vigorously several times a day.
3. Now the two liquids need to be combined. Tip: do not pour all the syrup into the infusion at once. Add a third to start, taste, then pour in a little, until the sweetness of the drink suits you. This tincture should not be cloyingly sweet. The remaining syrup can be used, for example, for baking. If too strong, add some water. You can also acidify the drink with lemon juice – a little bit.
4. We are filtering the tincture only now, since it is impossible to filter the thick syrup by itself. To do this, we use gauze folded in several layers. If you want the liquid to be absolutely transparent, pass it a couple of times through a cotton filter, but it seems to me that this is already overkill.
5. Before use, honeysuckle tincture should stand in a cool place (basement, for example) for a couple more months, preferably more. Only then will its amazing taste fully open, round out, and sugar will no longer feel like something foreign.

This recipe in practice from our friends from the Dobrovar school:

Pouring on fermented honeysuckle

For this recipe, frozen honeysuckle is not suitable – only freshly picked, and not immediately after rain. We need wild yeast that lives on the skin of the fruit – they must first ferment the berry, as a result of which it will soften and release juice. In addition, there will already be some alcohol in the “semi-finished product” – less vodka will be needed. By the way, you can make honeysuckle liqueur without vodka in the same way – you just need to let it ferment completely. But such “village” drinks are too rough – it’s better to immediately make honeysuckle wine using normal technology.

How to do it:

1. Sort unwashed, fresh honeysuckle berries. Put in a 3-liter jar mixed with sugar – in layers. Add water to cover the berries. If desired, add the juice of half an orange and a little cinnamon. Tie the neck with gauze or a cloth, leave the jar in a warm place until fermentation begins. Shake or stir occasionally with a wooden spoon to prevent mold from forming on top.
2. When fermentation began – a musty smell appeared, bubbles, in general, movement is visible in the jar – mix the pulp one more time and put a water seal on the jar. Or a glove. Although I don’t understand what is the difficulty in acquiring a water seal for an ordinary can neck – it costs a penny.
3. We are waiting for 4-5 days, while the must is actively fermenting. Without waiting for the end of fermentation, pour vodka or sorting into the jar – so that the container is completely occupied, under the very lid. You can leave the water seal for another day – strong alcohol will kill the yeast, but some of the gases will come out for some time, we don’t need them in the drink.
4. Mix well, close the jar tightly and transfer to a dark, warm place for 4-5 weeks. Periodically, the pouring needs to be shaken. Next, drain the infusion, squeeze the pulp through cheesecloth and discard. Again, pour the liquid into a clean jar and let it stand for a day or two. Now a precipitate has fallen in our tincture, it can be decanted – drain the pure upper fraction through a tube. Part of the sediment can be filtered, if not laziness.
5. “Bring” the drink to your own taste. You can add sugar, acidify with orange juice, filter if the liquid is cloudy. We bottle it and send it to the cellar to ripen. The liqueur needs to stand before drinking longer than the usual tincture – at least 3 months, preferably six months.

honeysuckle spottykach

Spotykachi is a separate class of folk alcoholic beverages prepared using heat treatment of raw materials (we have a separate article about them). Slow “cooking” of berries will release the juice, neutralize the remnants of glycosides, in a small amount, but still contained in honeysuckle seeds, even edible varieties. Such a drink is made faster than a classic tincture or liqueur – usually two weeks is enough. The best honeysuckle spottykacha base for this recipe is moonshine, grain or fruit, diluted up to 50%.

How to cook:

1. We sort and wash the berries, then dry them on a towel. Pour into a saucepan, add sugar and water – to cover all the berries.
2. Bring mixture to a boil over medium heat, reduce heat to low. We heat, stirring, until the berries burst. Pour vodka directly into the hot syrup, cover tightly with a lid and let cool.
3. Pour the mixture into a suitable jar and send it to infuse for 2-3 weeks in a warm, dark place. After that, we squeeze the berries and filter the liquid through cheesecloth, cotton wool – as far as our perfectionism. Now the tincture can be sweetened to taste – just don’t overdo it!
4. Pour the spotykach into bottles, put in a cool place. It is better to let him rest for at least 2-3 months.

Dried honeysuckle on cognac with spices

Easiest recipe ever. It is better to take cognac of average quality – one that is not disgusting to drink in its pure form, but, of course, not 20-year-old Martell either. The bouquet of spices can be supplemented or changed at your own discretion.

How to do it:

Making a drink is easy. Pour honeysuckle into a jar, pour brandy to the top, put in a dark warm place. After 5 weeks, add spices and rose petals, shake and leave for another week. Now we drain the tincture, filter it properly and sweeten to taste – the honeysuckle tincture should not be overly sweet, but this is at your discretion. Before tasting, this drink should stand for a month or two.