After long experiments, trial and error, I am sharing with you a recipe for homemade Becherovka, which has become one of the few favorite drinks in our house. The recipe is quite simple, requires a minimum of effort, very little investment and one and a half to two weeks of patience.
Cooking Becherovka at home
If you suddenly decide to discuss Becherovka with me, then I will not deny that this drink is prepared exclusively in Karlovy Vary, exclusively on spring water, exclusively on a set of herbs known only to two people (I already wrote about this here).
So, I’m not going to deny that the recipe below is not a genuine Becherovka recipe. As the person who posted it on the Odessa forum said, call this drink whatever you want, even Neherovka, even Pocherovka. But how the resulting drink differs from the original, for better or for worse, is up to you. I personally found out that home-made Becherovka is no worse than the traditional one and even better in some ways.
So. In my infusion, I used alcohol, which I had previously diluted to 70% using these recommendations. By simple calculations, I decided to dilute it to 55%, which is quite enough for such infusions. Vodka is unambiguously unsuitable because of its low strength, therefore, if you have not found pure alcohol in your city, add 1 liter of state-owned 200 ml of pharmacy alcohol 95-96%.
This recipe is designed for a final volume of 1,5 liters of product, so get a hermetically sealed glass vessel of the appropriate size (plastic is not welcome).
For everything we need:
- 1,2 liters of alcohol with a strength of 50-55% or 1 liter of vodka and 200 ml of alcohol;
- Cinnamon – 5 grams;
- Carnation – 15-20 pieces;
- Cardamom – 1 g (2-3 boxes);
- Anise – 2 grams (1 teaspoon without peas);
- Allspice – 8-10 peas;
- Orange peel – 1×5 cm (! without white skin);
- Sugar – 150 gr;
- Water – 250-300 ml.
Important! It is better to use cinnamon not ground, but in sticks-tubes-shavings. In this form, it is more aromatic and easier to filter the drink.
During the year of experiments, I used exclusively Indian spices, namely: cinnamon tree bark, green and black cardamom in boxes, cloves with whole buds, real anise in grains (not star anise). The only exception was allspice, which was bought at a nearby supermarket.
Cooking the following: put all the spices in our container and fill them with alcohol. We tightly close and put in a dark, warm place (you can near the battery for faster extraction). We insist the drink for a week with occasional shaking. After 7 days, filter the tincture through a fine sieve or several layers of gauze.
Before filtering, I recommend tasting the infusion – if the smell and taste seem poor, leave it for another couple of days.
Cooking syrup: Dilute 150 g of sugar in 150 ml of water and put on fire. Stir constantly until the sugar is completely dissolved. We do not bring to a boil (you can boil a couple of times, but at the same time constantly remove the white foam with a slotted spoon). Remove, cool to room temperature, remove the foam, if it is still present and add to our infusion. Let me remind you that you need to pour alcohol into water, so immediately pour the syrup into a large container and only after that pour the filtered infusion into it.
Then pour another 100 ml of water into the saucepan in which the syrup was boiled, rinse it and also add it to the tincture. In total, you should get exactly 1,5 liters of liquid. Instead of sugar, fructose can be used, given that it is 1,7 times sweeter than sucrose (that is, regular sugar). For 150 ml of water, I added about 90 g of fructose. After mixing the tincture and syrup, homemade Becherovka can be considered ready.
After all the procedures done, you will get a very tasty and aromatic drink that the Czechs are so proud of. The author of this recipe did not fail to mention the financial side of the issue. Now a bottle of Becherovka 0,5 in a supermarket costs about 100 UAH (400 r). I spent no more than 1,5 UAH on 30 liters of my Becherovka (the price of alcohol and a bag of allspice).
PS Having tried several options for homemade Becherovka and different technologies for its preparation, I came to the conclusion that it is easier to prepare it as follows: mix 0,5 liters of water and 0,5 liters of alcohol, add spices and let the infusion stand for exactly a week. Boil a syrup of 120 g sugar/70 g fructose in 230-250 ml water and mix with the filtered infusion. Set aside for about a week for the taste to even out.
After that, I recommend trying Becherovka and if its taste seems too harsh, add a little more water. However, if you are not going to drink it in its pure form, you should not dilute it. This drink is very well savored with tonic, the most affordable of which is Schweppes. I also recommend adding 20-30 ml of the drink to coffee and tea.