Recipes for making sambuca at home

Well, “Rum” got to the drink loved by millions – tasty, very fragrant and spectacular when serving Sambuca anise liqueur! Today we will talk about the process of making sambuca and, of course, we will consider several sets of ingredients for it at once – both simple and more complex, including coffee and red variations.

Sambuca is one of the most popular liqueurs in the world, definitely in the top 10. It is made, like most other similar drinks, in two stages – first a concentrated tincture is made, which is then distilled to obtain an aromatic alcohol with a very rich smell. Therefore, for all recipes for making sambuca at home, a distiller is required, even the simplest one. For those who have not yet acquired an alembic, on our website there are several recipes for imitations of sambuca – tinctures similar to this liquor in taste and aroma.

Is it possible to cook real sambuca?

The answer is definitely yes. Despite the rampant popularity and a certain veil of mystery cast by manufacturers, this drink is not difficult to manufacture. The main reason for the fame of sambuca, as for me, is the “Burning Sambuca” cocktail, you know, with “smoking” with hot vapors – this is really fun, effective and original. There are other methods of drinking – Artyom wrote about them in detail in this article.

As for the technical process, everything is simple – you only need an apparatus and patience, and a few ingredients that you can buy at a pharmacy or from grandmothers. In general, according to the principle of production, sambuca is similar to homemade gin or menthol liqueur. But in terms of composition – everything is somewhat more complicated. Let’s go in order.

1. Anise

The main ingredient of sambuca. It is to them that the drink smells breathtakingly – for some – and unbearably stinks – for others. And not star anise, namely anise – not stars, but seeds, like cumin or cumin. It is with this spice that the story of the appearance of sambuca is connected – anise was first brought to Italy by the Arabs, it was used as a medicine, and later as an alcoholic drink that the locals liked, who finalized the recipe.

2. Elder

But the second main ingredient is more controversial. These are the flowers or berries of the black elderberry. Elder in Latin – “Sambúcus”, it would seem that everything is clear. But representatives of the Molinari company, the hegemon of sambuca, stubbornly deny this ingredient, arguing that it does not contain it, and that Sambuca got its name either from the town of the same name, or from the Saracen ship on which anise was brought, or God knows from what else…

You won’t understand – is this some kind of strange marketing ploy or is it true? Other sambuca producers, including the oldest – MANZI di Civitavecchia – do not deny the presence of Sambúcus nígra in their drink, and it is present in all recipes of experienced moonshiners, mainly in the form of flowers rich in essential oils. In general, as they say, “there is an elderberry in the garden, and an uncle in Kiev.”

For your information! With such an ingredient as elderberry inflorescences, problems often arise – it is not always available in pharmacies. In the middle lane, the flower picking season begins in May – June, that is, very soon. So if you decide to make sambuca, you will just have time to collect this raw material for free.

3. Other components

Manufacturers of sambuca write on the labels about some mysterious herbal preparation that is part of the drink – it, as always, is kept in the strictest confidence. But mysteries are mysteries to be solved. Home distillers have created many recipes that, according to reviews, are much richer in taste, aftertaste, and aroma than the same Molinari Sambuca Extra. Most often, star anise, licorice, citrus zest, cardamom, thyme, vanilla and much more are added to anise.

In short, there are many compositions for sambuca, I will describe the most interesting of them at the end of the article, and for starters, the manufacturing method using the example of the simplest recipe, which includes only anise.

How to make sambuca Technical process.

So, the ingredients are extremely simple – a liter of 70% alcohol, 100 grams of anise and 300 grams of fructose.

The first step is to prepare the tincture.

We put anise in a jar, fill it with alcohol and send it to a dark, warm place for 5 days. It makes no sense to insist anymore, the concentration of essential oils in such saturated infusions no longer increases. After infusion, we drain the liquid through gauze, squeeze the anise cake well and take a third part from it – we no longer need everything else.

Attention! You can’t try the tincture, even 30 grams – with such saturation it is dangerous, especially if black elderberry is present in the drink – in the “raw” state it contains sambunigrin glycoside, a strong poison that breaks down during distillation!

The second step is distillation.

1. We add 250 ml of pure water to the tincture and pour it into the distillation cube, we also send a third of the macerated anise, which we selected earlier. Anise can be put not in the container itself, but in a steamer – but this is already at your own peril and risk.
2. We drive on low heat, the maximum distillation speed is 3 drops per second, otherwise splashes may get into the liquid and the sambuca will inevitably become cloudy.
3. We select the heads – 15-20 milliliters.
4. The volume of the main fraction should be about 700 ml, you can take 750, but very carefully – the “tails” of sambuca are very cloudy and start to go immediately after the degree drops to 70.

Step three – dilution and exposure.

As a result, we should get approximately 700-750 ml of 70% aromatic alcohol. The trouble with sambuca is opalescence, we touched on this problem in an article about homemade gin. Therefore, it is desirable to make the liquor strong – at least 43-44 degrees, so it will burn better, but the sharpness will still not be felt due to a fair amount of sugar.

Accordingly, we measure the strength with an alcohol meter and dilute it with clean filtered spring water according to our calculator. Please note that the result will be approximate – alcohol meters will not show 100% correct data due to the fact that there are a lot of essential oils in the drink. Therefore, it is better to take 100 grams of our aromatic alcohol, mix and write down the proportions, which are then applied to the bulk.

Add 350 grams of fructose to the diluted sambuca. It is better to use fructose, since sugar can give the liquor an unpleasant yellowish tint, and this rarely happens with high-quality fructose.

That’s practically all. The finished drink is sent for aging – at least 4 weeks, best of all – 2 months, after which it is completely ready for use!

Sambuca do it yourself. Recipes and formulations of herbs

We present you several different recipes for sambuca, which differ in weight and composition of ingredients. All recipes are taken from various forums of moonshiners and verified by the authors. Components are indicated based on 1 liter of 70-degree alcohol.

Recipe number 1 – classic

You can find this composition on any more or less competent alcohol site, but I will give it anyway, and then there will be trickier recipes.

• Anise – 50 grams;
• Star anise – 50 grams;
• Black elderberry flowers – 25 grams;
• Lemon zest – 3 grams.

The cooking method is common, the only caveat is that you need to add the whole star anise and a third of the rest of the mass of spices to the distillation cube.

Recipe number 2 – coffee sambuca

A slightly more complex composition, which will result in a sambuca with a light coffee aroma.

• Anise grains – 100 grams;
• Star anise (whole) – 25 grams;
• Elderberry inflorescences -25 grams;
• Licorice root (licorice) – 2 grams;
• Cardamom – 3 grams;
• Coffee beans (arabica) – 30 pieces;
• Lemon zest – 3 grams.

Nuances: grind coffee in a mortar before insisting. Do not grind, namely break into pieces. Throw into the tank, as in the previous version, the whole star anise and a third of the rest of the mass.

Recipe number 3 – red sambuca

The most difficult composition. According to this recipe, the drink is tinted and slightly acidified with fresh black elderberries after distillation. You can not do this – then you get just the original sambuca with a rich aroma and a slightly yellowish color, since some spices according to the recipe are added directly to the boiled syrup.

• Anise – 50 g;
• Star anise – 25 g;
• Black elderberry flowers – 22 g;
• Black elderberry fruits – 10 ml;
• Carnation – 2 buttons;
• Coriander – ¼ tsp .;
• Thyme – 1 tsp;

Nuances: sambuca is infused and distilled in the same way as in previous recipes. However, in this case, flavored sugar syrup is used, which is prepared as follows.

For 250 ml of sugar, you need to take 250 ml of water, fresh zest from a fifth of a lemon, 2 cloves and, on the tip of a knife, ground cinnamon and vanillin, or better, vanilla extract (read how to prepare the extract in this article). Cook the syrup for about 10-15 minutes, removing the foam, then cool under the lid and strain. Mix the syrup and distillate, add about half a teaspoon of black elderberry fruits to it for coloring, let it brew for 5-7 days, until it turns reddish, after which it is carefully filtered.

Recipe number 4 – almond sambuca

There is also such a variant of the recipe for making sambuca at home. The resulting drink will give less anise and star anise, but it will have a lot of citrus aroma and an interesting almond shade – like homemade Amaretto.

• Anise – 30 g;
• Star anise – 30 g;
• Elder flowers – 15 g;
• Peel with 2 lemons;
• Bitter almonds – 2 pcs.;
• Half a large nutmeg.

Nuances: before insisting, crush the almonds – not into dust, but into pieces. Put only star anise in a cube or dry steamer, the rest is discarded.

As we can see, making sambuca with your own hands is quite within the power of anyone who has any kind of moonshine still. Recipes can and should be adapted to your tastes – add or remove certain ingredients from them, experiment with a sample, distillation, syrup. Remember that the recipe is only a recommendation, and it is up to you to decide whether to follow them strictly or make your own adjustments!