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In no case do I urge anyone to make alcoholic drinks at home, but in our time there are very few pleasures left. The covid is to blame for this, which forbade us to meet, go to theaters, concerts and football.
Not so long ago I got into the production of alcohol and drinks based on it for myself and my friends. There are many sites on the Internet where there are discussions about homemade and store-bought drinks. You can make any taste.
The story was shared by blog subscriber Eugene.
Why I decided to make alcohol myself
I have already written several articles on the production of my own alcohol from a gift set that my relatives presented to me for the New Year. The kit included a bottle, a faceted glass and a few handicraft mixes:
- cognac;
- whiskey;
- liquor;
- herbal tinctures.
Since we are not particularly distinguished by the ability to sommelier, those drinks that I made before seemed to me quite tolerable. I think that even if the original and the drink made from the set were poured into different glasses, I would not be able to distinguish them from each other.
This time I’m making Becherovka liqueur.
What ingredients are required
Judging by the label, you need to get alcohol 70 degrees somewhere. You can’t buy this in a store. But fortunately, my distillation column allows you to get rectified alcohol with a strength of 96,5 degrees. And it doesn’t cost me anything to dilute it to 70 degrees.
So, to infuse the liquor, judging by the label, I need:
- alcohol 70 degrees – the cost of its production for me is 100 rubles per liter;
- sugar syrup – the cost is not more than 10 rubles;
- a mixture of herbs – the cost of the set is a secret for me, since it was a gift. In the store, similar bags of herbs are sold for 300 rubles.
Mix bag.
For a blend of cognac and whiskey, I have long fried sugar, the so-called caramel. There are many recipes for it on the Internet, and in short, I melt sugar in a ladle, then cool the resulting liquid a little and add 100-200 grams of water.
I decided that instead of sugar syrup, I would add caramel to the drink, because in addition to sweetness, it gives the drink a noble light brown color.
The cooking process
First, I diluted alcohol 96,5 degrees with distilled water to 70 degrees, measuring the strength with a breathalyzer. Poured the resulting alcohol into a liter bottle.
Then he poured the contents of the sachet into alcohol, corked the bottle and shook it well.
Beginning of Becherovka’s infusion.
As you can see, the color turned out not at all beautiful, but let’s hope that over time it will acquire a more noble shade.
I have had this drink for a week. It dyed a little brownish, and to give it a more noble tone, I added caramel to it.
Caramel.
At the last stage, I diluted it with distilled water to 40 degrees, because a 70-degree drink is hard to drink.
What result did I get
After insisting and adding sweet caramel to the liquor, I got a drink of a very beautiful color.
Final product.
He poured it into glasses, and my wife and I arranged a tasting. Yes, as I expected, the taste of Becherovka turned out to be so similar to the original that few experts could distinguish it.
I sometimes like sweet liquors, especially in vodka cocktails. Moreover, for some time now I have stopped buying industrial vodka, because on my column I overtook it and received 20 percent of completely inedible waste. I dilute my pure ethyl alcohol to 40 degrees – that’s all the wisdom.
So, thanks to my cousins, I got a wonderful drink and, unlike previous prototypes, I even decided that Becherovka could be completely made from bags of mixtures.
Have you tried to infuse such drinks yourself? Write what you got.
Dear readers, remember that alcohol abuse harms your body. Take care of yourself!