Three recipes for cherry plum liqueur at home

In Georgia, it is called “tkemali”, like the famous sweet and sour sauce. In Transcaucasia, they even make pita bread from it. The fruits of this tree are added to bozbash, kaurma, chakapuli, piti and other national dishes. You won’t see it often in drinks, but cherry plum will undoubtedly become a hit in your assortment of homemade drinks.

Cherry plum, as a rule, gives huge yields. If by a lucky chance you have a cherry plum tree growing in your yard, then you should have enough not only for tasty and refreshing compotes and kvass, but also for bright wine and unusual liquor, even if you want to use some of the fruits for jam, jelly or Georgian tkemali. How to make wine from cherry plum has already been mentioned in this article. There, this topic is touched upon in passing, so my next article will be about this drink. Now I suggest you prepare a cherry plum liqueur according to one of three recipes.

To be clear, cherry plums are not always yellow fruits. On the contrary, you can often find fruits red, purple and even black. Even more often cherry plum is identified with the Mirabell plum, which is a delusion. Plum variety Mirabelle has small yellow fruits with an easily detachable stone (in all types of cherry plum, the stone is poorly separated). But more importantly, this plum has a weak, not bright taste, so in liqueurs and wines it loses a little to cherry plum. But Mirabelle can be used to make liqueurs according to the recipes below, with more emphasis on spices.

Due to the high content of pectins in cherry plum fruits, it is very dreary to filter the liquor. After filtering, if the taste seems too pale, you can add a little fresh ginger, a few clove buds, or a little cinnamon to the liqueur. After that, it is enough to keep the liquor with spices for another 2-3 weeks and filter again. The taste of the drink will turn out to be more intense and spicy, but cherry plum will still dominate in it. It is imperative to store cherry plum liqueur in a dark, cool place and give it as much time as possible to ripen (more than 1 year).

Homemade cherry plum #1

Cooking option number 1

Rinse cherry plum or Mirabelle under running water, remove the bones. Cut in half, place in a jar of a suitable size and sprinkle with sugar. When the fruits release juice (2-3 hours), pour them with vodka and alcohol, and then keep them in a dark, cool place for about three weeks. Strain through several layers of gauze, squeeze the cherry plum well. Filter through cotton wool and bottle. The color of the drink turns out to be lemon, almost like Limoncello, the smell is bright, fruity.

Cooking option number 2

Rinse cherry plum or Mirabelle under running water, remove the bones. Pour the fruits into a jar of a suitable volume and pour alcohol. Insist for three weeks in a dark, cool place, shake occasionally. After 3 weeks, strain the infusion, and pour the remaining cherry plum with sugar, shake. Wait a week and drain the resulting syrup, squeeze the fruits. Combine tincture and syrup, bottle and send the liqueur to ripen.

Homemade cherry plum #2

Juice from cherry plum or Mirabelle is easily extracted using a conventional juicer. Juice carefully, you can use a blender, mix with sugar, pour into a container of a suitable volume. Add alcohol and 1 tablespoon of spicy infusion *. Insist for 2 weeks in a dark cool place. Strain, pour into a clean container, cork tightly and send for aging for 6 months. At the end of the exposure period, filter the cherry plum liquor through a cotton filter and pour into clean bottles. Set the bottles aside for further maturation or tasting.

* Spicy infusion – in Poland it is literally called “tincture of four roots”. In fact, this is a common spicy tincture, consisting of 0,5 liters of alcohol, cinnamon sticks, 1 vanilla pod (or equivalent), 5 clove buds and 1 whole nutmeg. Also, some people add 5 boxes of cardamom to this tincture, but I recommend using no more than 2-3. Keep this flavoring tincture for two weeks, and then you can add 5 tablespoons of cane sugar, but this is not necessary.

Homemade cherry plum #3

Pour half of a 2-3-liter jar with peeled and washed cherry plums. Pour the fruits with sugar and pour alcohol so that it completely covers the cherry plum. Close the jar tightly and send the contents to infuse in the sun for three weeks, not forgetting to shake the jar periodically. Then the resulting liquor must be filtered through several layers of gauze, squeeze out the cherry plum and bottle the drink. Store the liqueur in a dark, cool place for at least 6 months before tasting. The liqueur is slightly sour and is ideal for sweet desserts.

Homemade cherry plum liqueur needs a long aging, and it is recommended to uncork any drink according to the above recipes no earlier than 6 months after bottling, and preferably after 1 year. As for the last recipe, some recommend pouring the remaining cherry plum, which, of course, then does not need to be outlived, with sugar syrup – you will not get a strong cherry plum liquor. You can also sprinkle the berries with sugar again, wait until it dissolves, and then strain and boil before bottling. It will turn out a delicious dessert drink for the winter, for hot tea.

PS In Runet, there is also a cherry plum liqueur without alcohol, that is, a liqueur of natural fermentation. How it differs from wine, both in production technology and in taste, I did not understand, so I decided to exclude recipes of this kind from this article. It is better to make wine from cherry plum according to the correct technology than to make a pseudo wine liqueur.