Blueberry Liqueur Is Easy & Fast To Make

welcome to Stella everyone I'm Jesse and this is the channel all about chasing the craft of home distillation and making it a legitimate hubby my dirty little secret is blueberry liqueur I have made this stuff three times now it was the first liqueur I think I ever made and I goofed off just to try it you know without the cameras rolling to see what it would be like I loved it and unfortunately I've never recorded it until now so I guess future jesse has just teased everyone with what this stuff ends up looking like let's get stuck into actually making it and the first thing you're going to need is alcohol yes that is an adjourn OTT a bottle and that is because I made it myself this is essentially just vodka at 93 percent alcohol if you want to use store-bought vodka that is perfectly fine I am gonna be using this at a relatively high ABV so if you can find something higher than 40% you know even like a decent a good Everclear or something like that at you know 90% but you can use whatever you know clear spirit you want to be fear so back to the side for now and obviously we got a need we're going to be blueberries as well these are frozen blueberries you could use frozen blueberries and to be honest a lot of people say these are actually better than the fresh thing because the freezing process almost kind of shreds the berries up and allows them to be more accessible to the spirits but I don't know I just kind of got something against using frozen berries and I want to use fresh berries luckily for us we have a sweet pick your own place really really close to where I live right now let's go get some berries [Music] I'm amazed to say that even with the kids eating so many berries I managed to get a kilo of fresh delicious blueberries so good so that is 1 kilo or 2.2 pounds we're going to be using that obviously to turn until the cure but we also have some honey I'm going to talk about why we use that later on that let's get stuck right in and the first thing we want to do is kind of muddle these berries a little bit smash them up just a little and the reason we want to do that is in this form here it's actually kind of hard for the alcohol to you know really penetrate into their berry and any sort of speed and get the delicious flavors and colors out into the spirit so we just want to break it up a little no problem with this many berries is that I don't want to you know straight up put them in a blender or something and turn them into absolute mush I want to mash them just gently just to sort of break the exterior structure of the berry up doing it in here is just going to turn into a giant mess so I'm actually gonna do this in little batches just enough like I said to break kind of a almost like pop the skin a little if that makes sense yeah that's good and into a jaw so the next step is pretty simple we just add the booze now like I said this is 93% I made it myself you do not have to use homemade beverages obviously and in some parts of the world it's illegal so don't do that but for those of those that are interested this is the tpw if you would like to learn how to make the tpw you can click on the card up here no I'm not telling you what that acronym that means because if you don't know what you're talking about it can sound kind of gross but I show you it's not anyway so literally all I want to do is make sure that everything is covered so that when I give it a good shake there's always going to be alcohol in contact with all of the berries now I do need to change this out actually hold up there we go so literally all we're going to do is leave this to sit and wait every now again when I come past that a couple of times a day give it a little shake just to make things a j't ate it up I'm actually put just a wee bit more booze in there generally I find that with these maceration x' that I end up aiming for about 1 to 1 in terms of volume of fruits to liquor especially if I'm doing the high ABV stuff so you know 1 litre of berries or 1 kilo of theories which is not the same but it's close enough to 1 liter of alcohol so we're gonna let this sit for a while I will come back and tell you when I think it's almost ready cool so these guys have been doing their thing for four days now and as you can see the color coming out them is absolutely bonkers the aroma it's pretty good as well and I've yet to taste it because remember this is 90 proof so I have just dose straight in I'm gonna call this I'm saying this is done right now you could probably leave it a little bit longer than this just because there is still some you know color than these berries oh yeah that's high ABV to be honest what I'm probably going to do because I'm pushing it a little bit here just to get this video out for you guys is to once I've separated the berries once I've strained the berries out I'll probably put a little bit more booze back into that and let that go for another four or five days you know just to make use of the delicious berries but anyway you guys will have time you can leave it for another few days instead of doing that what we need to do right now is to separate these to serve them for the most part this is pretty chunky so I'm just going to do a really down and dirty straining first and then we'll see what it's like I'm just literally going to use a stainless steel bowl in a colander quite not even bother with the sieve and the reason for that is it's superfast you need enough to mess around waiting for hours with a coffee filter which sucks do be careful with it though obviously it is going to make a mess if you spill it BAM all right so I am NOT going to press these berries I'm not going to squish them I'm not going to do anything crazy like that because one I don't want to create cloudy particulates floating around in the syrup and two I am going to be you know really using these like I said earlier that is up to you if you would prefer to get you know an extra five percent out of it then by all means you know put it in a in a muslin cloth and a cheesecloth and squeeze it and wring it out that's cool like I said I'm not going to bother what I am gonna do is just let this sit by itself for about ten minutes only most of that drain out what I like to do is to get everything dialed in at the stage and seems a flavor proof sweetness before I go filtering it again just sorry you know it's the last thing I do is filter it it's nice and clear into the bottle you're done now in the past I've done this with liquid honey is what I've proofed it down and sweetened it with this stuff is insanely easy to make I've mentioned at the beginning I like it you know with local wild honey it's literally just honey plus one and a half times the honey and water by volume warm it up a little bit stir it until it dissolves whack it into a bottle like this I like to have it in a bottle it's great for cocktails it's also really good for cooking you know you can make my vinaigrettes and stuff with it really easily so I wake it in the bottle like this keep it in the fridge that's where this is going it's a fresh batch traditionally that's what I've done but this is a very delicate spirit and you know this time around I think I'm going to play with doing how much that honey to put in first of all and the sweetness I want to dial in but also whether or not to use just simple syrup as well and that's what I actually have here so just you know this is a batch I made up earlier today which is cooled down exactly the same deal to make it is this just with sugar not honey just be aware these different with the same amount of sugar you'll get a different impression of sweetness based on these two things anyway so what I'm going to do is I am going to draw five mils of the blueberries spirits under each of these cups and the exact volume is pretty much irrelevant I'm just doing it so I know how much is in each so I can play with the ratios and a you know relatively controlled controlled manner between the three the first one I'm going to hit with another five mils so literally one two one of the honey liquid of the liquid honey to spirit and I'm gonna do it because I think that's gonna be way over sweet but I just want to you know just to for lols at the moment and figure out if that's where I want to go that is two and a half mil so two two one twice as much of the blueberry spirit as honey and this one down the end what I'm going to do is do one mil of honey and one and a half whoops let's water of the sugar syrup now what I'm going to do is proof all of these down to 35% so they're gonna be the same volume and the end the stinky what's changing it's the the same amount of spirit and the same amount of water just give me that one guys that was not entirely accurate but the the difference of honey and the sugar is what's changing cool all right so all 35 percent a buttload of honey a decent amount of honey and then the same event a sort of you know the same amount of sugar syrup between these two but some of its get out of FY goddamnit you know what friggin flies sorry let's give it a nudge this one's got the most sugar out of everything well yeah it just tastes like honey nothing much else in there way too much honey too much sugar in general can't taste much of the blueberry the first one oh yeah that's better so I can smell blueberry where I couldn't before to be fair that could actually be the difference between the glasses I can't smell anything in there I can just smell honey that's starting to taste like a honey blueberry liqueur so much more like blueberry still a little bit too on the almost waxy this is quite a grungy honey so it's almost a little bit honeycomb ish oh yeah okay here we go yes that's it I think if anything it may be a slightly too high proof at the moment but and saying that it's warm here today it's you know it's City pushing 30 degrees which is kind of crazy for us and this is you know and this is slightly warmer than that still from being made up so I'm guessing it probably presents a little hotter than it really is a little bit more boozy and kind of crazy than it really is I've also just shocked the heck out of it proofing it down and whacking all that stuff in there right away it might be a little bit over proofed as well but I think the sugar is good so I'm just going to leave it and gonna let it settle you know in two or three days I can adjust it a little bit if I want so what I'm going to do is I'm going to scale these ratios up to you know to match the rest of this jar I'm just going to assume that what I've taken out doesn't count because it's negligible but those exact ratios of what I'm using is damn flies now is almost irrelevant for you because this is what I like and the reason that I showed you this process and didn't just give you these numbers is because I want everyone to be able to you know mess around and make things the way they want to make them to experiment know with them to see how you know changing the amount of sugar versus the amount of honey to whatever I want to I'm gonna let people do that themselves and not you know just hard and fast force them to do what I'm doing does that make sense you know what I'm just gonna you guys doesn't see anything nothing happening you saw nothing cool before I get into tasting guys I need to give the patreon a huge huge thank you I don't get to do this sort of stuff without the patreon so I yeah thank you guys I really really appreciate it final product is super subtle I have to say that guys it's really subtle the color is was awesome I love the color I mean look at that you can't go wrong with the color now the aroma there's a hint of honey and then the impression of blueberries that's about it there's not a whole lot there but blueberries are kind of a really subtle flavor and then of themselves and a weird way for me this is sweeter up front then I know me go with liqueurs but in this instance I'm happy to do so because that sweetness brings out the flavor of the the blueberry I think blueberries are I know they're not a crazy sweet fruit but I have the impression of them bring sweet so I like you know like lemon to me doesn't make a whole lot of sense to be really really sweet I like it to have a bit of a kick in and and some tartness to it and finish sharp just a little bit but blueberry I don't want that out so does sweet at a normal for me even after 15 you know 20 minutes these beans that are behind the scenes going on here that this is is set in that time the shock of proofing it down is starting to clean itself up already it's much more of an integrated spirit already so in a couple days I think it's gonna be great and the blueberry flavor almost comes back after you swallow so you swallow it just tastes like a pleasant sweet generic berry with a touch of that wild honey and then the blueberries to the flavor almost comes back up and honestly guys I've got some more fresh blueberries here blueberry is almost like that you know even nice fresh blueberries I kind of like that much to me as well you eat them and that are pleasant to eat but there's not a whole lot of flavor there to be honest they're just kind of taste fresh they taste a little sweet they taste quite mellow and then it's almost after you swallow you get this this sort of it's almost not a flavor it's like a it's a more of an aroma like retro nasal impression you know as you breathe out after a while and that's the same impression they get on the spirit goes so it is quite delicate it is quite dainty it is sweeter than normal it is something that I would actually sit and sip you know like I would drink a port but it's also going to be great in cocktails honestly probably mostly to add color I mean imagine a little bit of us in a gin and tonic for example that would be dope that would be really good origin and soda you know like a nice fruity floral aromatic and light gin with a some soda water touch of touch of tonic and then some of this in there too to bring up the colour and just add a little bit more sweetness to it as well so all in all guys and thoroughly I'm totally happy with this I always am when I make blueberry spirit we've got NoHo down the road so we try to do this at least once a year that's been you know three years in a row now making spirits so yeah it's something I would totally suggest you give it a go hell of a lot of fun and I will be I'll be carrying on the tradition for sure so anyway guys I hope you had a blast watching this if you did make sure you hit the like button down below subscribe all that good stuff and I will catch you next time keep on chasing the craft see ya [Music]

Channel: Still It

Views: 337,032

Keywords: blueberry liqueur, blueberry, liqueur, home made liqueur, home made blueberry vodka, make your own blueberry liqueur, easy blueberry, Jesse, Chase the craft, home distilling, still it, how to make, vodka

Id: UDUU7cPNUy4

Length: 17min 2sec (1022 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 07 2020