Ginger honey liqueur

Ginger, honey and single malt whisky – for many this would just about be heaven! Mr Portions is a fan of whisky liqueur and viewed this as the ultimate honey-lemon cold remedy...in fact, since we made this it’s amazing how many “colds” Mr P has had!

Here’s what you need:

1 cup honey
1 cup water
3 tablespoons fresh ginger root, peeled and chopped
1 lemon’s zest
1 ½ cups whisky (we used Talisker, as we had a bottle to hand)

Bring the honey and water to the boil – you will notice that a scum will form; this is beeswax. Use a spoon to skim it. Make sure you do this otherwise you might get nasties in your liqueur! Boil the mix for 5 minutes. This is the wax that would be in the liqueur if you skipped this stage:

Add the chopped ginger and lemon zest and boil for a further 5 minutes.

Remove from the heat and leave to cool until the mixture is warm but not hot.

Sieve the mix to remove the solids, including any beeswax you missed on your first attempt:

Pour into a kilner jar along with the whisky and swirl around.

Store in a cool, dark place for 4 weeks.

Strain the liquid through a coffee filter and pour into bottles. The following photo shows the importance of filtering – on the left is the pre-filtered liquid, on the right post-filtering:

Age 2 more weeks, then your liqueur is potable.

Cheers!

Time to make, from start to potable: 6 weeks

Yield: approx 2 cups/500ml