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Coriander is a truly unique spice that can give a special taste not only to any dish, but also to many drinks. Its wonderful taste and aromatic qualities are used with might and main by moonshiners, and very successfully. Today we will talk about a wide variety of drinks made with this spice, find out the recipe for the legendary Borodino tincture and the extremely original Macedonian liqueur made from coriander’s “younger sister” – fresh cilantro.
Coriander is a plant of the Umbrella family, very beloved and often used in the manufacture of homemade drinks. This is a relative of cumin, without which the German “Kummel” is indispensable, dill – the main ingredient in delicious dill vodka, as well as angelica, fennel, anise and a number of other spices widely used in the manufacture of a variety of drinks. There are both independent coriander tinctures and tinctures that use combinations of this spice with various ingredients – horseradish, rose hips, malt and even bread! Today we will look at several recipes for tinctures on coriander and cilantro – both quite complex and very simple.
Coriander tincture “Minute”
Well, of course, not a minute, but a couple of hours. And better – a couple of days … But still faster than classic tinctures. If suddenly you bought fresh Borodino bread and spicy salted herring, but you don’t want to consume all this miracle “dry”, such a drink is ideal for your snack! And also – to any meat dishes, especially pork, poultry, goulash, salads – in general, to everything spicy, tasty and appetizing!
We need everything-nothing:
- 50 grams of coriander (preferably whole, not ground, otherwise the drink will be cloudy);
- Alcohol 96% – 250 ml (or medical 70% – 450 ml);
- Sugar or honey – 1 teaspoon;
- Water – 350-400 ml.
To prepare, pour all the water into a saucepan, add coriander (you can add a little of your favorite spices) and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, put on a lid and simmer for about half an hour. After that, cool slightly, add sugar or honey and let it brew in a warm place for a quarter of an hour.
Filter the broth through several layers of gauze and pour alcohol into it (directly into warm), then mix well. Now our mixture needs to be put in a cool place for at least 2 hours, better – more. If turbidity appears, filter again before use, through a cotton pad or coffee filter. Everything, our coriander vodka is ready!
Liqueur “Macedonian” on fresh cilantro
Fresh cilantro is rarely used in tinctures, but we managed to find such an interesting recipe on one of the alcohol forums – it was taken from an old cookbook, adapted and tested by the author. If you don’t really like coriander greens, it’s better not to risk it, this rich drink with an unexpected sweet-spicy combination will appeal only to notorious “kinzoman”!
Ingredients:
- cilantro – 3-4 large bunches;
- Alcohol 70% – 1.5 liters;
- Sugar – 900 grams;
- Water – 1 liter.
- Citric acid – 1/3 tsp
Preparation:
- Cilantro is washed through a colander, dried and finely chopped with a sharp knife, after which it is choked with hands.
- Chopped greens are poured into the jar and alcohol is poured. The container is tightly closed and placed in a dark, warm place for a week. Shake the jar periodically.
- After a week, the infusion must be drained through several layers of gauze, the rest of the cilantro must be squeezed out.
- The resulting tincture is set aside for another 2 weeks. Now the jar does not need to be disturbed, it should fall out – or rather float up – sediment. Gently decant the infusion with a thin tube, filter through a cotton swab, if necessary – several times.
- We cook sugar syrup from all sugar and water, with the addition of citric acid. Let it cool down to 70-80 degrees.
- Pour the resulting tincture of cilantro into the warm syrup, stirring the liquid all the time. Close the liquid and let cool.
- Immediately after cooling, the liquor, in principle, can be considered ready. But it is better to keep it for 2-3 months in a dark place – then the taste will become more rounded, and the color – transparent.
Advice! So that the liquor does not turn out to be too sweet, first take not all the syrup, but only 2/3 or even half, mix it with the tincture and taste it. Want a sweeter drink? Add the syrup little by little until the liqueur tastes to your liking.
This sweet, rich drink of soft emerald color goes well with soft cheese, poultry, any Georgian dishes – especially kharcho soup, the recipe of which is on our website. It is also interesting to use it with coffee or desserts or in its pure form, chilled.
Vodka on coriander with zira, rose hips and walnuts
This tincture uses a combination of umbrella plants – coriander and zira (cumin) – which I mentioned at the beginning of the article. The addition is specially prepared – boiled and fried – walnut shells, a simple and more delicate replacement for oak bark, as well as rose hips (you can read about it in this article). The result should be something like a slightly spicy homemade cognac. The tincture will go well with meat dishes of Eastern European, Central Asian cuisines – I think, because of the zira, it will be especially good with pilaf.
Ingredients for 3 liters of vodka, or better – 50% sorting or moonshine:
- 12 grams of coriander seeds;
- 4 grams of cumin seeds;
- 9 medium rose hips;
- 10 grams of fried nutshell (how to fry it – read below);
- sugar – 2 tsp
Preparation:
- First you need to prepare the walnut shell – this process is simple, but long, moreover, the shell can be useful to you in the future, for example, as a replacement for walnut membranes. The shells need to be boiled in a large amount of water for about 15 minutes, after which – let it brew for 10-12 hours.
- Drain the water, rinse the mass under cold water and put it in the oven for a couple of hours to dry. After that – put in a dry frying pan and fry until dark brown, almost black.
- Put the cooled shells, spices and rose hips in a jar and pour alcohol over it. Insist in a dark place for 2-3 weeks.
- After that – drain through gauze, if necessary – filter through cotton wool or paper.
- Now our tincture of moonshine on coriander should be sweetened to taste, mix well and set aside for another 3 weeks in a cool place. If after this period a precipitate has fallen out in it again, filter it again.
Everything you can taste!
2 recipes for tincture “Borodino”
This drink has nothing to do with the Battle of Borodino – it is so named by analogy with fragrant Borodino bread, in which a lot of coriander is put according to the recipe. But the bread, indeed, got its name in honor of the famous battle with Napoleon, moreover, the coriander in it symbolizes buckshot. In addition to spices, Borodino tincture on moonshine necessarily includes one of the ingredients that gives a kind of rye, bread aroma – it can be barley (barley), malt or just black crackers. Consider 2 recipes – classic, more complicated, and simplified, on breadcrumbs.
Tell me, uncle, it’s not without reason: you ate bread, but it smells of fumes?
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Classic “Borodino”
For the classic recipe for Borodino tincture on moonshine, we first need to prepare – fry in a special way – pearl barley, this is easy to do, I have already described something similar in recipes for imitation whiskey.
Ingredients:
- Moonshine (preferably grain) 50% – 3 liters;
- Coriander – 12 grams;
- Cumin – 9 grams;
- Pearl barley – 50 grams.
- Sugar (for caramel syrup) – as needed.
Preparation:
- We sort out the barley and send it to a dry frying pan. When a light blush begins to appear on it, we remove a little more than half, and burn the rest to a coffee color. You can simplify the process and fry the whole mass of cereals to a medium brown hue.
- Then you can go in two ways: either coarsely grind all the ingredients – then the tincture will be prepared for only a week, but it will have to be carefully filtered many times; or throw barley and spices whole, but increase the infusion time to 2-3 weeks.
- One way or another, the ingredients filled with alcohol should stand in a dark place until the liquid darkens and acquires a characteristic bread and spicy aroma.
- After that, it needs to be filtered – as many times as needed.
- We cook caramel syrup from water and sugar until it acquires a dark brown color – we don’t burn sugar at all so that it doesn’t taste bitter.
- We add color until the drink acquires a beautiful dark shade – to match the Borodinsky loaf.
- If necessary, sweeten slightly.
- Next, the tincture should “rest” for several days, or better – weeks, in a dark place.
Everything, “Borodino” is ready for use!
Photo from homedistiller.ru forum
Tincture on Borodino bread
This recipe is much simpler, it does not require barley fuss, and the result is not much worse.
Ingredients per liter of product:
- Moonshine 45% – 1-1.2 liters;
- Well-dried Borodino crackers (better than pink salmon) – 50-55 grams;
- Coriander – 3 grams;
- Cumin – 3 grams;
- Fennel – 2 grams;
- Allspice – 3 things and 1 small parsley (you can do without this item);
- Honey or sugar – 1 tablespoon;
The drink is easy to make. Crackers and spices are placed in a jar and filled with alcohol. The whole thing is infused for about 5 days, in a warm dark place. After that, the drink must be carefully drained through cheesecloth. Do not squeeze crackers – otherwise a lot of turbidity will appear!
If there is still a sediment in the drink, it must be passed through a cotton filter, after which – bring the volume of moonshine to 1 liter and sweeten to taste, moderately. Let it rest for 3-4 days, if you used honey, not sugar, the tincture will have to be filtered again. Everything, the drink is ready for tasting!
There is one caveat – this coriander tincture, unlike most similarly prepared drinks, does not improve with time, it should be stored for no more than 3-4 months, otherwise it will, pardon the pun, “stale” – it will lose that very bread aroma. However, most often they drink it long before the end of this period.
This is such a tincture – it really is “Liquid Bread”, not like your beer!