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In this educational article, you will learn how to prepare tinctures at home with alcohol or vodka. It will only touch on the principles of creating tinctures, so it will be less meaningful in terms of letters, but no less meaningful in terms of usefulness.
Some of the methods of making homemade drinks will be complemented by interesting recipes that will help you create a delicious, much tastier than store-bought tincture in your kitchen.
In one of our articles, you learned how to dilute alcohol at home, so if you find a way to a respectable bootlegger, then life will become much easier for you. If there are none in the area, you can use vodka, but this is not the best idea. Alcohol is a very good solvent, so the more it is in a water-alcohol mixture, the better.
Vodka, as you know, has a strength of 40% – this is not enough, the optimal degree of alcohol for tinctures from 45 and above. You can raise the degree of vodka in a simple way: pour a couple of vials of pharmacy ethyl alcohol 96% into it – counting on 1 liter of vodka. We will get a water-alcohol solution with an approximate strength of just over 50% (if you don’t have an alcohol meter, use our calculator for diluting alcohol with water).
Classification of tinctures for alcohol
A little theory for the curious. Tincture – an alcoholic drink with a strength of up to 60%, obtained by infusing a water-alcohol solution with berries, fruits, spices and herbs. Sugar / sugar syrup and other ingredients are also added to them. Of course, the process is much more complicated than just mixing alcohol with various ingredients. Tinctures require a minimum of 3-7 weeks, and a maximum of 2-6 months of time, so be patient first.
It is also worth mentioning that tinctures differ significantly from liqueurs – the latter, as a rule, are fermented or by adding pre-prepared fruit drinks to alcohol. In tinctures, aromatic substances and essential oils go directly into alcohol, which takes so much time. It is also worth mentioning that various strong drinks can be used for tinctures: gin, rum, bourbon, calvados, whiskey, etc. But it is much easier to work with pure alcohol, since you do not have to fight the original taste of the drink. Let’s move on to a brief classification, which we slightly supplemented:
Alcohol tinctures are bitter – a fortress of 30-60%, obtained by infusing alcohol on herbs, roots, seeds, leaves, berries and peels.
Spicy alcohol tinctures – a fortress of 30-60%, obtained as a result of infusion of alcohol on various spices, followed by filtration or distillation in a distillation column (“cube”) or moonshine still.
Sweet alcohol tinctures – a strength of 18-25% with a sugar content of 150 to 300 g of sugar per 1 liter of drink, obtained by infusing alcohol on fruits, berries, roots and other products, followed by or preliminary addition of sugar / sugar syrup. Actually, if in such a tincture there is from 300 to 400 g of sugar per 1 liter, then this is already a liqueur, and if it is 350-500 g, then this is already a liquor.
Tips for young alchemists 18+:
- Before laying the berries in a container, it is recommended to freeze them – this will destroy the structure of the fibers, and the berries will give more juice.
- Basically, drinks are infused in a dark place at room temperature. But you can leave your tincture in the sun – the taste will change, it will become a little smoky, and the color of the drink will be lighter.
- The higher the infusion temperature, the faster the substances interact with alcohol – elementary physics and chemistry.
- Fruits can be pre-fried – this is how caramel is formed, which will give the drink a more noble shade and taste.
- During infusion, do not open the lid to taste or smell the drink – unwanted bacteria and oxygen, which oxidizes alcohol, can get there. As an exception, some tinctures require constant oxygen saturation.
How to make a tincture from alcohol
Basic recipe for bitter tinctures. Fill the container for tincture 2/3 with well-washed and dried berries or chopped fruit. Fill the remaining space with alcohol or vodka, preferably up to the very lid – so the alcohol will not oxidize. Close the container tightly with a lid or a thick cloth and place it in a dark place for the time indicated in the recipes. Shake the drink every 3-4 days. After, filter the tincture through a funnel with a filter, pour into a clean bottle / jar and put it in a cold, dark place for 2-8 weeks.
Basic recipe for spicy tinctures. Pour 1 liter of alcohol or vodka with the amount of spices indicated in the recipes and infuse it for the time indicated in the recipe. After, filter through a funnel with a filter or distill through a “cube”.
Basic recipe for sweet tinctures. Prepare a bitter tincture and add to it to taste 250-300 ml of sugar syrup per 1 liter. For syrup, use equal amounts of sugar and water; heat the mixture of syrup and tincture over a fire to 70оbut do not boil. Cool the liquid and bottle; store in a cool, dark place. Also, a sweet tincture can be prepared in the following way: add the amount of fruits, berries or spices indicated in the recipe for bitter and spicy tinctures to 1 liter of alcohol; add sugar there with the calculation of 50-300 g of sugar per 1 liter. Sugar can be replaced with honey.
Typical representatives of sweet tinctures, where honey is mainly used: pepper, horseradish, cranberries.
Recipes for homemade tinctures
Below I will give one recipe for all types of tinctures described above. To prepare them, first look at the above recommendations, and only then at the recipe itself.
Bitter cherry tincture. Dry 1,5-2 kg of cherries a little in the oven over low heat; add water if necessary; fill the cherry up to the very neck with alcohol or vodka. Infuse for 1,5-3 months, periodically shaking the infusion. Cherry pits contain hydrocyanic acid, which becomes harmful only after a long tincture (more than 6 months). Therefore, if the drink is filtered in time, then the bones can not be pulled out – they will give the drink a more noble taste. If the tincture was poured with alcohol, after the infusion, simply dilute the drink to the desired strength with water.
Spicy cinnamon tincture. For 1 liter of alcohol or vodka, add 3-4 tbsp. tablespoons dried blueberries, 2 tbsp. spoons of crushed almond kernels, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon (ground, but better in terms of whole) and ground citrus peel, 1 teaspoon of cloves and star anise. Infuse the drink according to the basic recipe for 1-2 weeks.
Voronets, sweet tincture. For 1 liter of alcohol or vodka, add: 150-250 g of honey or sugar syrup, 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon, ½ teaspoon of cardamom, ¼ teaspoon of nutmeg and cloves. Place the mixture in the oven in a tightly sealed container for 5-6 hours at a temperature of 50-60оC. After, strain the drink and put it to settle in a dark, cool place.
Using these recommendations, you can prepare almost any tincture – anyway, this process requires an experimental approach. Even when you do everything according to a strict recipe, the drink can turn out to be disgusting or, on the contrary, tastier than expected. Use, experiment, share experience.