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Anyone who has ever tried pear liqueur is forever captivated by its amazing taste and aroma. Who cooked it at home, he really knew what patience and endurance are. We offer you several recipes for homemade pear liqueur to captivate and learn.
The fruits of the pear unusually slowly give their taste and aroma to the drink, so the maceration process sometimes drags on for many months. After that, the drink must be aged for at least another six months or a year, so you will not become the star of friendly feasts with your liquor soon. But you will become a star, believe me. Pear liqueur is worth all the suffering, and besides, it is very easy to prepare. This is exactly the case when quickly done and forgotten.
There are not many secrets here. Unlike pear cider or wine (and pear makes an amazing liqueur, the recipes for which you will find in this article), liqueurs are not difficult to prepare. There are, however, a few nuances that should be taken into account in the cooking process. For example, pear fruits quickly darken after contact with oxygen. Darkened fruits give a not very beautiful drink, so this problem needs to be solved. And it is solved very simply – it is enough to process the cut fruits with lemon juice. Another trick: so that the pears do not quickly darken, you need to cut them not with a metal knife, but with a ceramic one or, if you are a descendant of the Romanovs, with silver.
It is also very important to choose the right pears. It should be the most juicy and fragrant fruits. These can be provided, for example, by the Williams pear, which is often used to make alcoholic beverages. Its wine-sweet taste perfectly reveals itself in drinks, harmonizes with spices and other additives, and a slightly nutmeg aroma completes this symphony of taste. Instead of Williams, you can take the varieties Olivier de Serre, Clapp’s Favorite, etc. However, we can eliminate the shortcomings of an unsuitable pear with spices or noble alcohol.
Pouring pear on vodka or white rum
This recipe is simple, but the least interesting of the presented in this article.
- 1 kg ripe Williams pears
- 1 l vodka or white rum
- 500 g light or brown sugar
- piece of fresh ginger root
Wash the pears, cut into halves and remove the cores with stones, and then cut into small pieces. The fruits can be sprinkled with a little lemon juice so that they do not darken. Put the pear on the bottom of the jar, cover with sugar, add peeled and finely chopped ginger root (to taste).
Pour everything with vodka or light rum (to save money, you can use part of the vodka and part of the rum, for example, in a ratio of 700/300). Close the jar tightly and send it to a dark, cool place for a period of 1 to 6 months. After that, drain the liquor through several layers of gauze, filter through cotton wool and pour into bottles. It is not recommended to squeeze pears, as it will be very difficult to clarify the drink later. The pouring should be kept for at least 5-6 months.
Universal recipe for pear liqueur
- 1 kg ripe Williams pears
- 1 l alcohol 70% or 0,5 l vodka and 0,5 l alcohol
- 300-500 g of sugar
- 100 g of honey
- 1-2 lemon
- to taste: cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, star anise, vanilla
Prepare the lemon juice by first cutting the zest from the lemons without the white skin, and pour it into a wide bowl. Wash the pears, cut into halves. Half of the halves, sorry for the pun, do not touch, removing only the core, and additionally cut off the skin of the rest of the fruit. Cut the fruits into small pieces and immediately send them to a bowl of lemon juice to prevent them from browning. Transfer the fruits with lemon zest to a jar of a suitable volume, add spices to taste (choice of 1-2 star anise, 3-4 cardamom boxes, half vanilla, 5-10 clove buds, cinnamon stick), honey and pour everything with 70% alcohol (dilute according to the calculator or use a mixture of vodka and alcohol 50/50).
To improve the drink, instead of a part of a dessert pear, you can take a little wild game or sour fragrant apples. Pouring from apples and pears or with the addition of wild game has a more interesting, full taste, while not losing its aroma.
A tightly closed jar should be left on a sunny windowsill for at least 5-6 months, and preferably a year. After a long wait, the fragrant infusion should be drained through a sieve or several layers of gauze, and the pears should be poured with 300-500 grams of sugar. Wait 2-3 weeks for the sugar to slowly turn into syrup. Drain the syrup (through a dense cloth), combine it with the previously drained infusion, filter if necessary. Wait another 3 months, then pour the finished liqueur into bottles and send for aging for another 6 months.
Recipe note:
Endurance is crucial here, so don’t be greedy. As an alcohol base, you can use 0,5 liters of pure alcohol mixed with 0,5 liters of cognac, fruit brandy or whiskey. You can also experiment and speed up the process of preparing the liqueur: mix the pears with simple sugar syrup (the amount of sugar according to the recipe) and boil at a high temperature for 5-15 minutes, then cool, and then proceed according to the recipe. True, you can get a “compote” liqueur without any frills.
Crushed cake from “poured” fruits and berries
When you throw the fruit from the liquor into the trash, somewhere in the world an Irishman cries, washing down his sadness with a bottle of whiskey. Don’t make an entire nation suffer – from any fruit or berry that you use to make a liqueur, you can make an amazing crumbled cake, an analogue of European Christmas bread. For this we need:
- 1 cup (200-250 ml) “liquid” fruits or berries (now pears)
- 150 g sifted flour
- 100 g butter (frozen)
- 2 Art. l. granulated sugar
- 1 st. l. vanilla sugar
- ½ tsp baking powder for baking
- 2 tbsp. l. coconut flakes
- 2 Art. l. oatmeal
- a pinch of ground cinnamon
- baking dish
Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Grease a baking dish and parchment, if using, with butter. Cut hard-frozen butter into small pieces, add flour, baking powder, sugar, vanilla sugar, coconut flakes, oatmeal, cinnamon to it. Knead the dough with your fingertips (as if you are giving a soft massage to a loved one) so as not to melt the butter and your dough does not turn into plasticine. It should be crumbly dough.
Transfer our fruits or berries to a baking dish, then sprinkle a thin layer of crumbled dough on top. For 25-30 minutes in the oven until the dough is browned. Transfer the finished cake to a plate, add ice cream or whipped cream to taste. The cake is enjoyed both hot and cold. You can bake such a dessert with any “liquor” fruits: plums, apples, cherries and even rhubarb. Before putting the fruit in a baking dish, they can be lightly sprinkled with sugar to caramelize.
Another recipe for pear liqueur with lemon
- 0,75 kg ripe Williams pears
- 230 g sugar (white or cane)
- 250 ml of alcohol
- 250 ml of vodka
- 100 ml of water
- 1-2 lemons (juice only)
- 5-6 cloves
- 2 boxes of cardamom
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 50-100 ml light rum
Wash the pears well and cut into halves. Remove the core, cut into small pieces. Sprinkle the prepared pear with the juice of 1-2 lemons so that it does not darken. Transfer the fruit to a jar and sprinkle with sugar. Leave the jar on a sunny windowsill for 2-3 days while the sugar turns into syrup. Add spices and pour everything with alcohol, vodka and water. Seal the jar tightly and leave in a dark, cool place for 3 months. After that, drain the drink through several layers of gauze or canvas, filter through cotton wool or a coffee filter. Add 50-100 ml of light rum and bottle everything. Aged pear liqueur for 3-6 months and serve.