How to make Baileys at home

In Ireland, 43% of all milk produced in the country is used to make Baileys liqueur. How much precious Irish whiskey is being used, I don’t want to think at all. Almost half of the country’s alcoholic exports come from this world’s most popular cream liqueur. We will prepare it at home.

Baileys Irish Cream Liqueur is easy to make at home. There are many recipes and all of them are tasty and unique in their own way, but we will focus on only two of them, tested by real people and time. Everyone has probably heard about a delicious coffee and cream liqueur based on Irish whiskey, cream and sugar. Baileys (or Baileys, Baileys) has become an integral part of bar culture, because it is ideal for many interesting cocktails.

Homemade liquor will turn out not so dense, but in terms of taste it is almost indistinguishable from the original, which has been produced by RA Baileys & Co since 1974. As the author of one of the following recipes aptly noted, real Baileys, along with its relatives Brogans, Carolans and Saint Brendan’s (analogues of Irish Cream, only Baileys has become more popular), belongs to the so-called synthetic flavors.

We also offer you to prepare other cream liqueurs, where the traditional Irish Cream is taken as the basis, but with a few additions. There is also a very interesting and original recipe for Nutella liqueur.

A mixture of Irish whiskey, cream and sugar cannot give such a rich taste. They clearly lack fresh animal cream, and instead stabilizers, preservatives and other chemicals. Unlike commercial liqueurs, our homemade Baileys won’t last long, but that’s a plus.

Easy Homemade Baileys Recipe

This is a simplified version that does not require much effort and saves time (it will take no more than half an hour to prepare a batch). Accordingly, this recipe has become the most popular – in the “Internet”, as a rule, lazy homebodies live.

Baileys liqueur ingredients

• 0,5 liters of vodka (Irish whiskey is better)
• 1 Bank of condensed milk
• 400 ml cream 10%
• 1 tbsp. l. instant coffee
• 2 tbsp. l. vanilla sugar (not vanilla!)
• 4 egg yolks

Step by step cooking process

1. Drive the yolks into a capacious bowl, add condensed milk and vanilla sugar there. Beat well with a mixer until smooth. You can also do this in a blender.
2. Add instant coffee (directly in granules) to the resulting mixture and whisk again. Granules, especially if they are large, may not dissolve, but there is nothing to worry about – after adding vodka (whiskey), everything will work out.
3. Now add cream and mix well again. Do not take very fatty ones – they will flake off and settle on the glasses, which can greatly confuse drinkers.
4. Add alcohol and mix thoroughly. The drink is almost ready.
5. Let it rest for 3-5 days in the refrigerator. After that, you can safely use it as a digestif or as part of cocktails, but the density will not be the same, so Cointreau may fail in the B-52. You need to store homemade Baileys in the refrigerator, where it will stand for at least 3 months.

This recipe is not practice:

Recipe for homemade Baileys from tincture (forum)

I found it on one of the alcohol forums and everyone who made it calls the previous recipe a pretty nasty thing. This Baileys will have to be pretty tricky, because the recipe is more complex and requires patience. But at the exit you will get a very tasty drink, almost indistinguishable from the original (the density will still be less). The preparation process consists of two stages: the preparation of the whiskey tincture and, in fact, the mixing of all the ingredients.

Whiskey tincture preparation

To begin with, let me remind you that on our website there is an article with recipes for imitation whiskey. You can take any of them instead of the recipe in this article. To prepare 400-420 ml of whiskey tincture, we need:

• 400-420 ml alcohol 60%
• 1/3 tsp ground ginger
• 6 g vanillin
• 2 tsp honey
• 1 tsp oak bark
• pinch of cinnamon
• sugar for caramel

1. We make 3-4 tablespoons of caramel – we burn sugar on fire almost to burnt (heavily caramelized sugar, how to do this, read in this article). We move the caramel to a jar of a suitable volume.

2. Add there: 1/3 teaspoon of ground ginger, a pinch of cinnamon, 3 sachets of 2 g of vanillin (not vanilla sugar), 2 teaspoons of honey and 1 heaping teaspoon of oak bark (you can buy it at a pharmacy, preferably before use soak and rinse).

3. Fill the ingredients with 60% alcohol. If it is possible to use whiskey, then pour it in half with alcohol – the total volume should leave at least 400-420 ml. The jar should be left in a dark, cool place, remembering to shake the contents a couple of times a day.

4. The tincture will be ready in 5-7 days. We filter it well so that there are no small particles left, and proceed to the next step.

Mixing tincture and “cream”

To get about 1,5 liters of homemade liquor, we need:

• 1 l fresh 10% cream
• 340-400 g of thick, not overcooked, not floury condensed milk
• 2 egg yolks (preferably homemade, orange)
• 2 teaspoons of good instant coffee, which must first be diluted in half a tablespoon of pure water

The resulting liquor can be drunk with ice or in its pure form. Before serving, it is recommended to filter the drink through a layer of cotton cloth again – this way less fat will settle on the glasses. As a result, you will get a very tasty cream liqueur with a strength of about 12% alcohol, which will feel like 17% inherent in the original. If you are not satisfied with its low strength, just add another 30 ml of pure alcohol. It is not stored for as long as the original, but it should last half a year, even if it is not in the refrigerator.

Given the fact that the original drink has now lost much in quality, the above recipes are real manna from heaven for lovers of original Irish drinks. According to the second recipe, making Baileys liquor at home is much more difficult, but the taste will be as close as possible to the creation of Irish masters. Enjoy and be sure to tell your friends.