Intoxicating experiment: toffee liqueur. Dentist approves!

Do you love toffees? Well, the ones that sneak into the furthest corners of your mouth, called hard-to-reach places in toothbrush ads, and stay there, it seems, forever. Now imagine that you can taste real toffee without all this disgrace. Imagine adding toffee to your favorite homemade smoothie and just drinking it over ice. And that’s all about toffee liqueur, which we will try to make at home.

Actually, toffee liqueur is nothing new. In the commercial sector, this topic has been ironed out by everyone who had the courage, from De Kuyper and Bols, to the lesser known Bacchus, Boulaine, Dr. McGillicuddy’s, Hiram Walker, Mother’s, Teichenne and Zuidam. All these companies make what is known as “Butterscotch Schnapps”, a toffee liqueur, a combination of butter, caramel and neutral alcohol. The result is a sweet, not very strong liquor (15-20%) with a pronounced candy taste of toffee.

And it so happened that if a drink is prepared in the commercial sector, there are at least a couple of its imitations in the sector, as they say, at home. About toffee liqueur and will be our 3rd intoxicating experiment!

Simple toffee liqueur

This toffee liqueur contains only natural ingredients and is quite easy (albeit time consuming) to make. It’s a wonderful digestif on its own, but it’s best served in cocktails (look for “butterscotch schnapps cocktails”) or simply in a cup of aromatic coffee.

First, prepare the iris. To do this, melt the butter in a saucepan with a thick bottom, add sugar and salt, and then boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar is completely melted and the syrup darkens slightly. After that, remove the mixture from the heat and pour it onto baking parchment (or tin baking tins). Wait until the mixture hardens, break it into small pieces with a hammer or the bottom of the pan, transfer to a jar of a suitable volume and add rum with vodka. Close the jar tightly and leave at room temperature until our impromptu toffee has dissolved. This usually takes about 24 hours if the contents are shaken vigorously several times.

After that, the jar needs to be put in the refrigerator for a couple of hours, and then filtered through coffee filters: place the filter in a funnel, pour in the liquor, cover the funnel with something on top so that the alcohol does not evaporate, and leave everything in this form in the refrigerator. As a result, transparent aromatic liquor will drain into a receiving vessel, and all fat from the oil and other solid particles will remain on the walls of the filter paper. This will probably take a long time and the filters will need to be changed frequently, so please be patient. Liqueur is good in many cocktails. Try mixing 2 parts cream soda with XNUMX part liqueur and XNUMX part orange juice – a thing!

Recipe in practice:

Liqueur “Taffy Schnapps”

Most commercial toffee flavored liqueurs are likely to use artificial flavors. What can we experimenters at heart try to do? Well, first of all, we can follow in the footsteps of the same manufacturers and mix vodka with some toffee flavored confectionery essence. Doesn’t sound very good, right? You can make your own toffees and mix them with alcohol, as we did in the previous recipe. You can even add cream to the original mixture to get a creamy texture, like Baileys, for example. And you can immediately prepare a liquid base for toffee and prepare liquor with it, which will allow you to almost instantly get a ready-made drink that does not need insisting and aging. This is what we will do in the next two recipes.

In a heavy bottomed saucepan, combine sugar, corn syrup (you can substitute maple syrup or any of the others in this article), and butter. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Reduce the fire slightly and cook the syrup, without stirring it, until a so-called “soft ball” is formed (read the article on syrups at the link above), which will happen at about 110-112^оC. After that, remove the toffee blank from the heat, cool, add vanilla, alcohol and glycerin (it will provide a uniform structure and silkiness). In principle, the liquor is ready. It can be strained through a sieve and poured into clean bottles, and then used for its intended purpose.

Since we did not “degrease” the oil, as is done in the following recipe, after some time oil, or rather its fat component, collects on the surface of the liquor. Some crafters advise adding a little emulsifier to fix this problem (for example, lecithin). But do not rush to run to the pharmacy. Firstly, it is possible to filter the liquor through coffee filters, but this will not bring much pleasure, because the filtering process can take many hours. It is much faster and easier to put the liquor in the freezer for 30 minutes and the fat will collect on top in the form of a hardened mass, which can be easily removed with a regular spoon. So, of course, you will lose half the oil in the composition, but the liqueur will still be tasty and suitable for mixing homemade cocktails. Or just try the following recipe.

Liquor “Taffy Scotch”

Real toffee, a butter and brown sugar based candy, does not contain scotch. What a swindle! The recipe below will help correct this nonsense. A cheap blend just needs a little fat-free butter and caramel. Scotch, by the way, can be safely replaced with one of the whiskey imitations. We make half a liter:

Cut the butter into small pieces and transfer to a saucepan with a thick bottom. Put the pot on a slow fire. As the oil melts, carefully remove the resulting foam with a spoon into a separate vessel. Heat until a clear liquid with pale lumps at the bottom appears in the pan. Skip the clarified butter (about 6 tablespoons), it can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 6 months and used in other recipes. To the remaining pale lumps, add the previously collected foam and syrup. The mixture can be slightly warmed and stirred to make it homogeneous. The blank for toffees is ready.

In a jar of a suitable volume, mix the milk caramel preparation, whiskey and vanilla. Close the jar tightly, shake well and leave in a dark, cool place for 2 days. Then place the jar in the freezer for 30 minutes. Any fat that still remains from the oil will float to the surface and harden – this must be carefully removed with a spoon. After that, strain the finished liquor through a fine sieve, pour into a sterile bottle and store in the refrigerator. Shelf life up to 1 year. The resulting toffee liqueur will be a worthy ingredient for your Manhattan or Old Fashion.

* – caramelized simple syrup:

• 200 g granulated cane sugar
• 400 ml simple syrup
• 50-100 ml boiling water

Pour sugar into a pan and place over medium heat. Fry until the crystals begin to melt and turn brown around the edges. Now you need to constantly stir with a wooden spoon until the sugar takes on the color of dark orange amber and becomes completely liquid. Carefully pour in the sugar syrup. The mixture will bubble up and steam violently, so be careful. Then you need to continue to mix until the newly hardened caramel dissolves in the poured syrup, this usually happens within 1 minute. The resulting syrup must be filtered through a sieve into a separate container, bring the total volume of syrup with hot water to 400 ml, mix well, and then cool and pour into a clean container. A similar syrup is stored for up to 3 months.

Well, as an epilogue, we offer you a recipe for Butterbeer from Harry Potter. Many fans believe that our toffee liqueur was included in the recipe for this drink. Maybe not as authentic as in “Three Broomsticks” and “Boar’s Head”, but definitely delicious!