Added: 10/06/2005 |
Liqueur recipes for those who want sweeten a bit taste of lifeA liqueur is a sweet alcoholic beverage, often flavored with fruits, herbs, spices, flowers, seeds, roots, plants, barks, and sometimes cream. The word liqueur comes from the Latin word liquifacere which means "to dissolve." This refers to the dissolving of the flavorings used to make the liqueur. Liqueurs are not usually aged for long periods of time, but may have resting periods during their production to allow the flavors to marry.
A lot of people use the words cordial and liqueur interchangeably. Though they both describe liquors made by redistilling spirits with aromatic flavorings and are usually highly sweetened, there are some differences. While liqueurs are usually flavored with the ingredients above, cordials are generally prepared with fruit pulp or juices. Nearly all liqueurs are quite sweet, with a highly concentrated, dessert-like flavor.
The general principle of liqueur-making is to take an alcohol base (sometimes called "neutral spirits") and steep a flavoring in it for a time. Next, filter out any remaining solids, add sweetening, and age. Finally it is bottled and served.
Mixing flavorings usually results in much richer tastes. With fruits, adding a little lemon/lime/orange peel can really liven up a taste. Cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg are also a great addition in moderation. When it's ready is may be used as base for huge varaity of liqueur recipes.
One other point: sweetening. Despite what you may think about how sweet the fruits you're using are, vodka will completely overpower them with its own inherent bitterness. In liqueur recipes usually sweet taste is wanted. To compensate for this, we add a saturated sugar solution to the liqueurs.
Main liqueur recipes usually include as basement such liqueurs: Amaretto, Apple and Cinnamon Vodka, Banana Liqueur, Cherry Bombs, Irish Cream Liqueur, Kahlua, Orange-Cognac Liqueur, Orange Liqueur, Raspberry Liqueur.
Here are several main cream liqueurs which are used in various liqueur recipes.
Cr¨¨me de Banana is a popular liqueur with many uses. It can be used to enhance any dessert, drink or cake which uses bananas. Cr§Úme de Banana can be made from whole bananas the results are quite different though. The flavor is very heavy and the smell pungent, and also difficult to filter. I have chosen to use an imitation banana extract which is readily available.
Cr¨¨me de Cacao is one of the most popular mixing liqueurs. It can successfully be used in almost any drink imaginable. It has a smooth chocolate and vanilla bean flavor with a dark mahogany color. Cr§Úme de cacao is available in both dark and white (clear) varieties color is their only difference. It is not possible in this recipe to produce a completely clear variety
Cr¨¨me de menthe one of the most popular liqueurs is actually quite easy to simulate. The majority of home recipes use peppermint as the flavoring ingredient and no other. But there is another mint that is required spearmint. Spearmint somewhat masks the peppermint flavor while sweetening and smoothing out the entire composition. Spearmint is very powerful and if you add too much, you¡¯re going to get the flavor of toothpaste.
Researchers determined that orange flavour is the most popular of all fruit aromas everywhere, which explains the reason of orange liqueurs world-wide fame and popularity.
Orange Curacao traditionally is made from the peels of the bitter oranges from the island Curacao. Today there are many variations of this old favorite on the market. Orange Curacao can be colored orange, blue or left clear (white). Some people argue that of all orange-based liqueurs, Cointreau is arguably the best, most flavourful and famous. The Cointreau recipe is secret, only known to three family members who never travel together. What is known is that dried bitter orange peels from the Caribbean (Haiti and the Netherlands Antilles) and sweet orange peels from Seville and Valencia are used, along with spices, alcohol and sugar.
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