Homebrew Underground

This is a recipe for a blackberry liqueur cocktail that you can make with homemade Blackberry Liqueur. It is a dry cocktail (not too sweet and fruity) that is served in a Martini glass rimmed with salt (like a Margarita). It is a very basic cocktail that you can make with common ingredients like Vodka and lemon juice.

Here’s an unusual recipe for cocoa. I call it "fortified" cocoa. It is made by saving the cocoa and vodka paste from a batch of chocolate liqueur or coffee liqueur. You can also try to repurpose the cocoa paste in other recipes. I have tried repurposing the cocoa in some brownies I made, but it was not successful. It wasn’t so good in the brownies but it was good enough for this fortified cocoa recipe. The trouble is that most of the flavor gets infused into the liqueur and the remaining cocoa is weak.

Save the cocoa paste from a batch of chocolate liqueur or tropical coffee liqueur. In the filtering step I will use a paper towel as the filter.

Just "roll" it off the paper towel and save it in a glass or cup and cover with plastic wrap.

Add milk, sugar, salt, water and cocoa paste to a sauce pan. Stir with a wooden spoon to dissolve cocoa paste. When the color is uniform light brown, heat over a low flame until it is hot but not boiling.

Stir frequently to prevent scorching. Turn off flame, add vanilla extract, stir and serve hot.

This is a great almond liqueur cocktail that you can make from homemade almond liqueur or almond caramel liqueur. It brings out the natural flavor of the almond liqueur without overwhelming it. If you plan to make almond liqueur and give it away as a gift, then you can include this recipe. This drink recipe uses sweet and sour mix, the recipe for which can be found on the Bar Mixers page.

Final Step – Blending and Bottling

Shown below is a shot of the blending ingredients (left to right starting in the back): 1 jar (2 batches) of clarified infused spirits, standard caramel syrup, standard sugar syrup, Smirnoff No. 57 100 Proof Vodka, vanilla extract and measuring cup.

Boil down the standard sugar syrup to 90% of its original voume to thicken it. Start with 10 oz, then boil for about 5 minutes then check it.

Pour the boiled down sugar syrup into a measuring cup You should have 9 oz when done. Then add 5 oz of caramel syrup. Allow to cool completely. Tip: pour the mixture into a Mason jar and put it in a sink or basin filled with ice water. This will cool it down within about 20 minutes.

Allow the mixture of syrups to completely cool down. This will be your blending stock. I use Smirnoff No. 57 for blending because it is very smooth.

Finally, blend it with the infused spirits and the proportionate amount of Smirnoff No. 57 100 proof Vodka according to the recipe, then add the vanilla extract. In the shot below the finished liqueur was made with 2 batches of the recipe. In other words, I started with 10 cups of vodka (in two Mason jars). I combined the two batches into one jar after the second infusion.

Shown below is a shot of the finished, bottled Tropical Coffee Liqueur.