Damson plum liqueur

Having these beautiful fresh damsons to pick for free from my parents’ garden inspired Mr Portions and I to use them for something a little more exciting than jam.

Damsons are an often overlooked member of the plum family because people always think of the tiny tart variety that will burn through your teeth at twenty paces. These are more like eating plums and very fruity and sweet.

This is a rich, fruity liqueur – perfect for quaffing during the mists and mellow fruitfulness of autumn. It is syrupy and tastes like alcoholic prune juice; it’s deceptive because the booze isn’t immediately obvious but really packs a punch!

Here’s what you need:

2lbs damson plums (or any other eating plum, such as Victoria)
2 cups caster sugar
2 cups vodka (we used Smirnoff Blue)
½ cup Polish pure spirit

NB. If you don’t wish to use Polish pure spirit, simply replace it with extra vodka.

Wash the damsons and pat them dry with a paper towel. Cut them in half and remove the stones – this is pretty easy as the damsons will be soft.

Place the prepared damsons in a kilner jar.

Add the sugar and close the lid. Shake.

Add the vodka and Polish pure spirit and close the lid. Shake.

Leave in a quiet spot, at room temperature for 4 weeks and shake occasionally to ensure the sugar mixes in with the damsons and vodka.

When the month is up strain the mixture using a fine sieve or straining bag. Then move on to a more refined filter either lining a sieve with a butter muslin or a coffee filter (but this can get clogged requiring frequent changing of the paper).

Unlike other fruits used for liqueurs, the damsons do not break down – this is what they’ll look like when you strain them out (they are extremely fiery so only eat one if you’re brave!):

Bottle your liqueur and age for a further month.

Cheers!

Time to make, from start to potable: 2 months

Yield: approx 3 cups/750ml

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

Crab apple liqueur

Mr Portions and I are determined to become more skilled in the art of foraging. It’s amazing how many fruits and berries around you in everyday life are edible. There may be no such thing as a free lunch but there are definitely free crab apples – easily identifiable as they are tiny apples.

In the name of research we each took a bite. I gagged more than Mr Portions as they are sour and I have a sweet tooth. The liqueur would definitely need sugar! We picked the crab apples before they got a red blush from the sun – we were looking to make a tart liqueur.

Here’s what you need:

4 cups of crab apples
4 cups caster sugar (I know this sounds a lot but crab apples are mighty bitter!)
2 ½ cups vodka (we used Smirnoff Blue)
½ cup Polish pure spirit

NB. If you don’t wish to use Polish pure spirit, simply replace it with extra vodka.

Wash, chop and core the crab apples. This is a bit of a faff as they are small and hard but it’s worth it so share the task and make witty conversation to pass the time.

Place the prepared crab apples in a kilner jar.

Add the sugar and close the lid. Shake.

Add the vodka and Polish pure spirit and close the lid. Shake.

Leave in a quiet spot, at room temperature for 4 weeks and shake occasionally to ensure the sugar mixes in with the crab apples and vodka.

When the month is up strain the mixture using a fine sieve or straining bag. Then move on to a more refined filter either lining a sieve with a butter muslin or a coffee filter (but this can get clogged requiring frequent changing of the paper). Here’s what crab apples look like after they’ve been in a jar with vodka and sugar for a month:

Bottle your liqueur and age for a further month. It was a touch “punchy” after a month but some people liked that – if you don’t, leave if another couple of weeks and try again...it will mellow over time!

Cheers!

Time to make, from start to potable: 2 months

Yield: approx 3 cups/750ml

Blackberry liqueur.....

...or “Purple Gold” as I think it should be called. This one is a stunner – of all the liqueurs we’ve made so far this is the most luscious, the smoothest, the most quaffable. Can you tell how much I love it? The only thing I’ve ever had that I can compare it to was a 40 year old exquisite port. Yes...it’s THAT good!

Conventional wisdom says that blackberries come into season at the end of August. I commute to work by train and could see lots of ripe blackberries at the end of July. It must be down to the hot summer we had. Sadly, the train driver wouldn’t stop the train and let me get off to pick them, so Mr Portions and I went to our nearest country park and got foraging!

The blackberries available were big, dark, juicy and soft. Wild fruit is always so much softer than commercial fruit. We picked lots more than we needed for this liqueur and feasted on blackberries until our fingers were purple.

Here’s what you need:

3 cups fresh blackberries
1 lemon’s peel
2 cups vodka (we used Smirnoff Blue)
½ cup Polish pure spirit
3 cups sugar syrup

NB. If you don’t wish to use Polish pure spirit, simply replace it with extra vodka.

Wash the blackberries and place in a kilner jar. Mash them so they start to release some juice and flavour.

Add the vodka and Polish pure spirit.

Seal the jar and swirl the ingredients round.

Store in a cool, dark place for 2 weeks.

Add the sugar syrup and reseal the jar. Swirl around to ensure contents mix.

Store in a cool, dark place for a further 2 weeks.

Strain the mixture through a fine sieve or mesh and mash the raspberries to ensure you get as much juice and flavour from them as possible. When you’ve squeezed all the ‘guts’ out of them they will look like this:

Once strained, you can start filtering – line a sieve with a coffee filter; this filtered the liquid very effectively – but be prepared to change the filter several times as it clogs. We found this a particularly laborious liqueur to filter – it took lots of filter paper changes and 6 hours! On the plus side, the gorgeous colour of the liqueur provides some interesting effects on the filter paper:

The liqueur wasn’t full and fruity in flavour after filtering so we aged for a further 2 weeks.

After waiting the extra 2 weeks re-filter and bottle your now-potable liqueur!

Cheers!

Time to make, from start to potable: 6 weeks

Yield: approx 4 cups/1 litre