Make The Most Of Strawberry Season With This DIY Liqueur
Winter is here with its delicious harvest! Beautiful deep pink-coloured strawberries are all around in your farm markets. Its time to put them into good use by making a boozy strawberry-based liqueur. The liqueur will have fragrance and flavour of the berry and lovely velvety texture that will last for the entire season.
Making Homemade Strawberry Vodka Liqueur
Steep slightly muddled strawberries in vodka with sugar for a month. Strain the solids out and collect the delicious liqueur in a bottle.
Ingredients
500 gms Strawberries, fresh and ripe
120 gms Granulated sugar
1 litre Smirnoff vodka
Method
1. Prepping The Strawberries
Take a sieve or a colander and place the strawberries in it. Rinse them under running cold water for a couple of minutes to clean. Lay the berries on a clean tea towel and gently roll so that the towel soaks up as much water as it can.
Hull the strawberries by removing the stalks and leaves, if any. Take a large glass or ceramic jar with a watertight lid and put the berries in it. Do not use plastic or metal since vodka will react with it.
2. Combining The Ingredients
Add sugar in the jar on top of the strawberries. Now, pour a little vodka in it, enough to cover the strawberries. The strawberries and sugar will add a strong flavour to the vodka. Use a potato masher to gently pound the berries. This is an important step, as though the vodka will leach the colour and flavour from the berries. Be careful to not be too rough or else you will end up cracking the jar. Top up the jar with the rest of the vodka and seal it with the lid. Give the jar a good shake so that the sugar will start to dissolve in the vodka. Ensure that the jar is not leaking after being shaken. If you don't have a watertight lid, then stir the jar well with a stainless steel spoon.
3. Steeping The Strawberry Vodka
Set aside the jar so that the contents can steep in the vodka for a month. Place the jar next to a sunny windowsill during the first week, this will help you to remember to give the jar a little shake every day which will help leach the fruit juices out and into the vodka. But if it's not incumbent on you to place it next to a windowsill, keep it in a sunny spot close to a space often visited by you in your home. After a week, keep the jar on a dark pantry shelf until you are ready to strain the liquid.
4. Straining The Liqueur
After a month, the berries in the jar will look paler and the vodka will have a lovely pink hue! Strain the berry flesh using a clean sieve over a large bowl or a jug. You can use a muslin cloth or a cloth of similar texture to line the sieve. Pour the liquid into the muslin. Let it sit for some time so that the liquid drains out completely. Do not squeeze the muslin bag to fasten the process. This will result in the liqueur getting a muddy and cloudy appearance. Just take the strain liquid away for bottling and place a fresh bowl or a jug under the sieve. The solid remnants look muddy and unappetising as the berries' have lost their colour and flavour to the vodka. But you can still use them to make a crumble, pie or jam, if you don't want to waste them. However, they will not add much colour to your food.
5. Bottling The Liqueur
First take out the bottles in which you intend to store the liqueur. Sterilise them with a hot bath or run them through a dishwasher. Make sure the bottles have dried completely. Pour the strawberry vodka liqueur into the bottles and seal with a tight lid.
