The preparation of homemade tinctures in our time is a hobby with elements of applied art.
Maybe such a hobby is not clear to everyone in the conditions when you can buy any alcoholic drink in a beautiful branded bottle, with medals and stars, with a bright and promising label. But, with the same success, you can "treat yourself" to a surrogate of unknown origin, or ordinary diluted alcohol, with the addition of artificial flavors.
The range of homemade tinctures can well compete with any large distillery, because these drinks are not made for profit and volume, but mainly for experimentation and tasting with a close circle of friends. The manufacturing process itself and the exchange of experience are important.
Turn tincture at home - basic technological principles
The basis of the tincture is purified alcohol or alcohol-containing drinks, the quality of which must be given special attention. The second important component is the vegetable raw material, on which the taste and aroma of the drink, its medicinal properties, when it comes to the manufacture of medicinal tinctures, depends.
Wild plums are appreciated for their special tart taste, which does not completely disappear even after freezing berries. The fruits of the turn are collected after the first frost, they acquire maximum juiciness and some sweetness. Sometimes home winemakers collect wild plums at the end of August, long before the onset of frost, and then freeze the berries in freezers.
The fruits of the turn are used to make tinctures, mainly in combination with other fruits, herbs and spices. In combination with honey, you can get a very interesting taste range, and such a tincture will decorate your home collection, like an elite drink.
Flowers, leaves, and black bark are also excellent raw materials. From the point of view of taste and aromatic properties, fruits and flowers are interesting. Harvesting of flowers begins during the flowering period, in the phase of a blossoming bud. The turn is a honey plant with a very delicate and pleasant aroma. This quality must be used in the preparation of tinctures.
Strong thorny tincture with a high concentration of plant materials can become the basis of homemade liquors, liquors, punch.
Depending on the sugar and alcohol content in tinctures, they are classified as:
Sweet: strength 16-25%
Semisweet - 30-40%
Bitter - 30-60%
Tinctures include, due to the similarity of manufacturing technology, gins (45%), balms (35-45%). As you can see, the alcohol content in fruit tinctures varies quite freely, which facilitates the process of home-made, but the sugar content in these drinks has stable values:
Balms and gins do not contain sugar at all;
In bitter tinctures, its amount reaches no more than 7%;
In semisweet tinctures - 10% sugar;
In sweets - 8-30%.
Other components of tinctures have a very different composition, and you can be creative in this matter, but traditionally at least ten ingredients are used to make gins and balms. Sometimes balms contain up to 50-60 kinds of herbs and spices.
The essence of the process of insisting fruits on alcohol is to dissolve the substances contained in plant components. Alcohol plays the role of a solvent. The duration of the infusion process depends on the extraction method.
The easiest option: the berries are crushed and aged in alcohol. The higher the alcohol strength, the better the result. Having received the extract (saturated solution), you can bring it to the desired strength with fruit juice, distilled water, and for the preparation of liquor or cream - with syrup, milk-egg cream.
You can speed up the preparation of tinctures by stirring or heating the mixture. To do this, the fruits, immersed in alcohol, shake, mix during the entire process of infusion.
The heating method can be used with caution: alcohol is easily ignited and volatilizes, and this should be remembered. Warm the container in a water bath in a sealed form to a temperature of no higher than 60-70 ° C.
1. Tincture of turn on honey at home
Ingredients:
Wild Plum Berries 2.5 kg
Vodka (45%) 3 L
Honey 500 g
Cinnamon 15 g
Cloves 20 g
Cooking Technology:
Sort the picked berries. To separate the juice more intensely, hold the washed berries for a while in the freezer so that they slightly freeze. They will have to be insisted for a long time, so remove the seeds. Make mashed potatoes: the smaller the particles of raw materials, the better they will combine with alcohol. Combine the berry mass with honey and alcohol. Stir and pour into a resealable container. To insist, select a bottle of dark glass. Stir the contents of the bottle daily for a month. When the liquid becomes transparent, and a precipitate forms at the bottom of the container, carefully drain the tincture, being careful not to shake the thick. It is necessary to withstand tincture for at least a year, at room temperature and in a place inaccessible to sunlight.
When aged 3-4 years, the drink acquires a soft and rich taste. At this time, you can add spicy spices to the tincture, stand for 10-14 days, strain and pour the tincture into dark glass bottles.
2. Tincture of thorns - making gin at home
Ingredients:
Alcohol (92%) 3 L
Blackcurrant: fresh berries - 1.0 kg; leaves - 200 g
Sugar 2 kg
Turn: berries - 2 kg; flowers - 400 g
Juniper (dried berries) 100 g
Coriander 50 g
Fennel fruits 100 g
Anise (star anise) 3-4 stars
Purified water 1.5 l
Cooking Technology:
The process of making this home gin is lengthy and a bit troublesome. In addition, the technology requires a distiller, but the drink is worth it! The output should be a bright ruby transparent gin, very fragrant, with a mild flavor.
First you need to stock up with currant jam in the summer berry picking season. Around the same time, pick up the flowers of the turn.
Wipe the berries with an equal amount of sugar, transfer to a sterile jar, put in the cold until autumn.
Turn flowers, currant leaves, anise, fennel and juniper fruits, put coriander seeds in a bottle and fill with alcohol. Put a bottle somewhere in the kitchen to make it convenient to shake it daily, but store in a closet in a dark place.
In the autumn, collect the berries of the turn, wash, shake the water well, remove the seeds, chop the blender, combine with sugar (1 kg), mix. You can warm it slightly so that the sugar dissolves faster.
Combine thorn puree with ready-made currant jam, add alcohol tincture. Soak the mixture for 3-4 weeks, tightly closing the container. Stir the contents daily by shaking the bottle.
After this, add water and distill through the apparatus to get a clear and aromatic liquid with a strength of up to 30%.
3. Sweet tincture of thorns at home instant cooking
Ingredients:
Turn 1.0 kg
Sugar 2.5 kg
Wine alcohol 2 l
Cinnamon
Clove
Oranges 3-4 pcs.
Ginger root
Cardamom
Water 0.5 L
Cooking Technology:
Prepare berries and oranges, fresh ginger root. Grind all the ingredients, sprinkle with sugar, add water and warm the mass until the sugar is completely dissolved. Add alcohol and close the mixture tightly in a prepared container.
Pour water into a large pot, filling it in about 1/3 part. Immerse the bottle of future tincture in cold water. Slowly heat the pan over a fire. When the water temperature reaches 70 ° C, turn off the stove. Leave the bottle in hot water until naturally cooled. Repeat heating 2-3 times, for two weeks. After this, strain the tincture. Leave it in a dark place alone until the liquid becomes clear, remove from sediment, as is done with wine.
4. Tincture of thorns at home with apples and cinnamon
Ingredients:
Turn
Apples 800 g
Cinnamon 2 sticks
Vodka 1.6 L
Sugar 0.5 kg
Turn tincture at home - useful tips and tricks
- Strong thorny tincture can be used with great success for the preparation of liquors, creams, punch, cocktails at home.
- Be sure to pay attention to the quality of alcohol in the process of making homemade tinctures: this component is no less important than the herbal composition of drinks. The best option is wine alcohol. You can use, of course, homemade moonshine, but be sure to double distill it and thoroughly clean it: the slightest presence of fusel oils will spoil the aroma of tincture.
- To clean alcohol at home, use a solution of potassium permanganate, charcoal.
