Recipes for tinctures from blackthorn on vodka, alcohol and anise

Blackthorn tinctures on vodka / alcohol / moonshine are wonderful “autumn-winter” drinks with a delicate aroma and a spicy tart aftertaste. Almost everyone likes them, they are easy to prepare, almost any alcohol is suitable for production, berries in our latitudes can even be picked for free. So it’s just a sin not to prepare such a drink!

Autumn is in full swing, most of the fruits and berries have already departed, and there are fewer and fewer opportunities for making homemade fruit alcohol. However, there was one more “highlight of the program” – a berry, which becomes especially tasty, fragrant and easy to process precisely at the end of autumn, after the first frosts – blackthorn.

In one of the previous articles, we already talked about Sloe Gin – sloe gin – an excellent, but still expensive drink. There are also recipes for sloe liqueurs, where not cheap sherry, port wine, cognac and other semi-elite booze are used as an alcoholic base – the article is here. Today we will discuss simpler and more affordable recipes for home-made sloe tincture – with vodka, good moonshine, spices, with and without fermentation of raw materials, and also learn how to make the Spanish national Pacharan liquor – anise-thorn tincture. The materiel for the turn is in the article about the turn wine.

A simple tincture of blackthorn on vodka

This recipe for tincture of blackthorn is easy to reproduce, without any special effort or expense. In fact, this is an ordinary ratafia berry, only the ingredients for it are selected taking into account the fact that blackthorn is not very juicy and sweet, but fragrant and tart. As an alcohol base, you can use ordinary vodka, vodka with cognac in a ratio of 2:1 or 3:1. If you take sorting (diluted alcohol) or moonshine, it is better to choose a higher fortress, 50 degrees. Berries, of course, should be harvested after the first frost, or at least kept in the freezer for a couple of days and then thawed.

1. Blackthorn is moved, washed, dried and sent to the jar. The bones can be removed, or you can leave them – from them the drink acquires a kind of “velvet” flavor (like Amaretto liqueur), but not everyone likes it. An option is to throw not all the bones into the jar, but only a part, for example, a third.
2. Mash the berries with a rolling pin, add nutmeg. Next, the jar is filled with alcohol under the very lid and sent to infuse for at least 3 weeks in a dark place. During the first two weeks, the contents must be shaken, then left alone so that the turbidity precipitates.
3. After settling, the liquid is filtered, sugar is added to it. Tip – do not throw all the sugar at once, sweeten the drink gradually, until the taste becomes balanced.
4. Almost ready thorn tincture on vodka needs to be defended for another couple of weeks, after which it should be re-filtered if a precipitate appears. Everything you can taste!

Advice! This tincture can be upgraded by simply adding a couple of hot pepper pods to it at the stage of repeated settling. They say that the drink turns out to be very interesting, with an invigorating and tonic and anti-cold effect. After adding pepper, taste the tincture daily so that it does not turn out too fiery. When the drink is already spicy enough, the pepper needs to be pulled out.

Blackthorn tincture

This recipe combines the principles of making liqueurs and tinctures. In the process of cooking, the berries will need to be fermented with wild yeast – therefore, in no case should they be washed, and they should not be harvested after frost, but before, otherwise the wild yeast on the surface will die.

Such a recipe requires more time and effort than the previous one, but the result is amazing – I was personally convinced of this, the drink is amazingly tasty, somewhat similar to cherry liqueur, with a very pleasant astringency, a subtle, subtle flavor of almonds and saturated downright blood color.

1. Ripe, sorted, unwashed blackthorn berries are crushed directly with a bone (without crushing it). To improve fermentation, you can first dry them in the sun for a couple of days – during this time, the yeast cultures will get a little stronger.
2. We put the fruit in a three-liter jar in layers, sprinkling with sugar in a small amount – it should take 150 grams in total.
3. We put everything under gauze in a warm place – the mixture should ferment in a day or two. If fermentation has not started, you can try adding a little water, if this does not help, purchased wine yeast will help.
4. After the start of fermentation, you need to put on a water seal or a glove on the jar and put it in a dark place to cook, preferably at a temperature of 18-24^оC.
5. Our liqueur needs to completely ferment, usually it takes about two weeks, depending on the temperature. When the glove drops or the water seal stops gurgling, we drain the liquid and fix it with pure alcohol, about 50-70 grams per liter of drink.
6. Pour the remaining berries with moonshine or sorting and let it brew for 2-3 weeks, after which we filter.
7. You can pour the turn for the third time – with standard sugar syrup – and insist another week, you can boil the berries in the same syrup, or you can just throw it away – if the tincture turned out to be saturated, it will be enough just to sweeten it with ordinary sugar solution.
8. Now – the most crucial stage. We take our sloe liqueur, obtained in point No. 5, mix with thorn tincture from point No. 6 (both liquids can be pre-filtered) and try. This drink should be 25 degrees in strength, not very sweet. To dilute, use plain water, water infused with berries, syrup, sugar or fructose – to your taste.
9. When the strength and sweetness of the product suits you, it needs to be defended for another couple of weeks, after which it is carefully filtered and that’s it, you can try!

This drink can also and should be improved by adding your favorite spices and spices. Cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg, anise and star anise, cloves, fennel fit perfectly with the turn. Old recipes for blackthorn tincture also include citrus zest, orris root, and sage. Such ingredients can be added in very small quantities in step 6 – they can significantly enrich the taste of the drink.

“¡No Pacharan!” How to make an old Spanish thorn tincture?

Pacharan is the legendary drink of the proud Basques, which is very popular in Navarre and northern Spain. It is a mixture of the familiar anise and thorn liquor, used as a digestif and a healing tincture, such a “healing and entertaining” drug. Every Basque knows how to cook pacharan. They even sell a semi-finished product for this business in supermarkets – ready-made anise tincture, on which the drink is made. If you have such alcohol at hand all the time, the recipe turns out to be really simple.

If, like ours, no one has ever heard of purchased anise, you will have to cook it yourself. You can use any of the recipes in this article. The Spaniards add fennel, star anise, orris root and chamomile petals to the anise – just a little bit. But the most common anise tincture, not too concentrated, will do.

Further, Pacharan is prepared quite simply. For a liter of 40-45 degree alcohol base, you need to take 250 grams of sorted, washed and slightly dried sloes, and a handful (10-15 pieces) of roasted coffee beans, mix everything and close the lid, and then wait patiently. Real Pacharan is prepared from two to four months, after which it is filtered through a dense filter. It is served without ice, in chilled glasses, it is considered a great addition to coffee. As you can see, this Spanish vodka-based blackthorn tincture is not that complicated and is quite reproducible in our realities.

Yes, I almost forgot – when you taste this tincture, do not forget to mention Onegin. It’s not that Pushkin’s rake had anything to do with pacharan, it’s just that “On Egin” in Basque means “Bon appetit!”