Fruit liqueurs are a great thing if you’re looking for a sweet and flavourful addition to your cocktail, often made over several months and packed full of fruit the liqueurs end up with a very potent and sweet flavour. The alcohol by volume strength of the liqueurs can be drastically different for each drink but the usual range is between 20 – 40%. The range of fruit liqueurs available is as huge as you can imagine, basically if the fruit can be eaten, it can be made into a liqueur. So for the sake of time we’ll just talk about the fruits you’re most likely to find in your fruit bowl at home.
Here are a few suggestions for cocktails to make with your liqueurs. Even just focusing on three common fruits, the ways in which you could use them in cocktails is vast. To save you scouring the web and getting too tipsy trying them all yourself, we’ve gone ahead and picked out our favourites.
For those who want a quick a very simple cocktail to start off with, you can’t go wrong with a “Midori Sour”. The name comes from it’s main ingredient, Midori, it is so sweet and tasty on it’s own that only a few other parts are needed to complete this cocktail. So if you want to try this delicious combination of sweet Midori and sour fresh lemon, go to Midori to see the full recipe.
If sweet & sour isn’t your thing, how about the drink equivalent of a nice apple pie. With only three ingredients this is a very quick cocktail to prepare. Grab your favourite apple & cinnamon liqueurs, some cinnamon and give it a go!
The final cocktail we’ll be covering has a more festive theme, titled “The Winter Solstice”. This cocktail utilises a few different ingredients that really remind you of christmas time and winter. The fruity flavours from orange liqueur and various other fruits, combined with mint and vodka gives such a strong impression of winter time. If you want to escape the monotony of eggnog this winter give this cocktail a try, follow this link for more details and instructions:
Not only can buy a huge number of different fruit liqueurs, if you’ve got the patience and the creativity you could make your own. By following a few easy steps, in a couple of months time you could have your very own fruit liqueur. The steps will vary slightly per recipe, but the general idea remains the same. First you’ll need to cook up some sugar and water till you have a syrupy mixture, then comes your favourite fruits and spirits. After a couple of filtering sessions and several months of maturing you’ve got your very own fruit liqueur. Much like good whisky and wines if you want the best results you’re going to want to leave it as long as possible before drinking. For more detailed instructions and tonnes of great recipes you can try at home, check out www.fruitliqueurs.co.uk
We’re not sure if it’ll count as one of your 5 a day, but they’re definitely worth trying out.
Featured images:
License: Image author owned
License: Image author owned
I’m a liqueur and general spirit enthusiast, regularly blogging about the new and exciting ways to make and use them. If you would like to read more and keep up to date with us, you can do so on Twitter and Tumblr.
