"liqueur" news and stories

Happy National Liqueur Day!

This range of sweetened alcohol involves the flavoring of any spirit with ingredients like fruits, flowers, seeds, herbs, nuts, spices, barks, leaves, roots, etc, through one of four methods:

1. Distillation: The flavoring ingredients and the spirit are blended then distilled;
2. Infusion: Hot water is infused with the flavoring items then mixed with the alcohol;
3. Maceration: The seasoning ingredients are dropped directly into the alcohol, to infuse it with flavor;
4. Percolation: Alcohol gets passed directly through the flavoring agents in order to take on their essential flavor.

They also fall into four distinctive categories: generic liqueurs, which follow standard recipes; proprietary liqueurs like Southern Comfort, which are made from secret recipes by specific producers; cream liqueurs, which are homogenized with cream; and creme liqueurs, which are generally of a thicker, syrupy consistency.

While many of these liqueurs are expensive purchases, some can be made from the contents of your liquor cabinet, spice rack and fresh produce. Check out our list below for homemade liqueur recipes ripe for your alcohol cabinet (or refrigerator!):

• Triple sec (with oranges and sugar)
• Drambuie (with fennel, honey and angelica root)
• Sambuca (with anise and honey)
• Grand Marnier (with cognac and orange zest)
• Frangelico (with angelica root, vanilla and hazelnuts)
• Kumquat liqueur
• Cointreau (with brandy and oranges)

I posted about Shochu recently, and one person commenting noted the difference between Shochu, a Japanese liquor, and Soju, a Korean liquor. (They are similar-tasting, and some Shochu is labelled Soju for marketing purposes.) Not long ago I tried a really interesting citrus liqueur made from Soju called TY KU. TY KU is made from yuzu, an Asian citrus, honeydew melon, ginseng, mangosteen, an Asian superfruit, goji berry, green tea, Soju, and Sake. It's refreshing, with totally exotic flavors that are hard to describe because they're unlike most drinks found in America.

Let's be perfectly frank: the liqueur is quite good. In fact, it's so good that a group of six of us polished the bottle off in one sitting (it's only 20 percent alcohol, so don't schedule an intervention!). But I don't normally write about liqueurs, so in the spirit of honesty, I'll share with you why I'm raving about this bottle.

It has an LED light in the bottom that lights up the liqueur inside, taking me right back to my college days when everyone in the dorm had a lava lamp. The light makes the green liqueur glow irridescent, a perfect conversation piece for a cocktail party (it was for mine!).

Also, apparently TY KU is a celeb favorite. Denzel Washington, Patrick Swayze, Leonardo Dicaprio, Jaime Foxx, and Paris Hilton have all been spotted drinking it.

After the jump, a couple of TK KU recipes (though seriously, it goes down just fine alone).

Tequila is probably the last thing you'd choose to drink after filling your stomach with fine dining. It'd be like getting dressed up in your best clothes--then spilling something on yourself right as you walk out the door. However, Agavero is a tequila-based liqueur that can be savored after any meal. As it first hits your tongue, it's rich and almost has hints of wood and coffee, then it smooths out into a lighter, almost herbal taste

Agavero is created by separately aging blue agave anejo and reposado tequilas in oak barrels. The two liquors are then blended with essence of Damiana flowers, which grow in the mountains of the Jalisco region where Agavero is made--some Indian tribes there believe that Damiana is an aphrodisiac. While mostly designed to be sipped on its own, Agavero can also be used in mixed drinks such as the Mexican Cosmopolitan or to spike a post-dinner coffee. The bottle is designed to look like the spiky flower of the blue agave plant, with embossed leaves creeping up the sides.

It's pink, it sparkles, and it comes in a fancy bottle. It's Nuvo!

Nuvo is the world's first sparkling liqueur, made with vodka and French sparkling wine. None of that, in theory, would make it pink. But, it's pink. Magic! (additives!)

It is definitely best enjoyed very cold, and is meant to be served in champagne flutes over ice.

The flavor and aroma are delicate; you can definitely taste the wines used (very fruity). There is a strength to it, though. The best way I can find to describe it is to say it tastes like sparkling white zinfandel with a ridiculously high alcohol content...and frankly, it's not bad!

Nuvo, in it's signature bottle, makes a great gift and looks chic when served at parties. Its classy pink color makes it feel just a little bit more special than champagne or any of your usual liqueurs. Add more vodka to it to make a sparkling pink cosmopolitan! We approve.

Source

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a review of Vlada, a New York bar that specializes in infused vodkas. As I mentioned in my post, my experiences at Vlada had made me nostalgic for the moonshine that I had once enjoyed in Southwest Virginia. Back in the day, I used to buy 'shine by the gallon and infuse it with fruits, herbs, honey, and other ingredients, producing a wide range of aperitifs. While I'm a huge fan of store-bought liqueurs, I have yet to meet the mass-produced tipple that can rival the blueberry-infused moonshine, moonshine-based absinthe, or moonshine krupnikas that I once made.

The more I thought about it, the more I decided that the time had come to restart my experiments in fruit infusion. I had a half bottle of Everclear in the liquor cabinet, which I quickly determined was still relatively fresh and potent. A trip down to the farmer's market gave me a couple of pints of fresh blueberries, which I washed, dried, picked over, and packed in mason jars. I covered the fruit in grain alcohol, closed the lids, and set them in the back of one of my kitchen cabinets. Apart from giving them a daily shake, I was content to let time and the 190-proof alcohol do their work.

A week later, the alcohol was stained a deep purple and the berries were gray. A quick taste assured me that the grain was still mighty strong, but was now infused with a nice blueberry flavor. Wanting something a little more intense, I let a second batch of berries steep for a week in the alcohol. Afterward, I had a very alcoholic, very intensely flavored blueberry liquor. I also had a second batch of slightly sour-tasting blueberry alcohol that I got from running the leftover blueberries through my fruit juicer.