Ingredients:
10 lemons
1 x 750ml bottle vodka
3 1/2 cups water
2 1/2 cups sugar
Take the zest from the lemons (use the lemons for something else, like lemonade). Place the lemon zest in a container that will hold at least 1 litre and then pour the vodka over the zest and cover or put the lid on. Steep the lemon peels in the vodka for about 4 days at room temperature.
After 4 days, stir the water and sugar in a large saucepan over medium heat until the sugar dissolves, about 5 minutes. Allow to cool completely then pour the sugar syrup over the vodka mixture. Cover and let stand at room temperature overnight. Strain the limoncello through a mesh strainer and discard the zest. Transfer the limoncello to bottles, seal the bottles and refrigerate until cold, at least 4 hours and up to 1 month.
Recipe for quince wine:
3lb ripe quinces
3lb granulated sugar
6pts cold water
wine yeast
yeast nutrient
campden tablets
Wash quinces then simply quarter them. Crush a campden tablet and put in the bottom of plastic primary bucket . Put quinces in then pour over water. Cover the bucket and leave in a warm room for 24 hours, then add yeast, yeast nutrient and sugar. Cover and stir well twice daily for 5 days.
Strain into sterilised demijohn with airlock, top up if necessary with cool water and ferment until bubbles stop in airlock. Rack wine into clean sterilised demijohn, top up with cool water then add campden tablet. Leave at least 6 weeks, the longer the better – do not bottle unless wine is clear.
Bottle, then leave at least 1 year before drinking.
This is really easy to make and one of those recipes where everyone has their own variation. The base of alcohol, honey, cinnamon and citrus peel is fairly standard but in my last batch I had no fresh fruit so missed out the peel, it was still lovely 
Here’s my version:
750ml Vodka
400 to 500g Honey (My personal taste is more)
3 Cinnamon Sticks, crushed
10 Whole Cloves
5 Allspice Berries, crushed
10 Black Pepper Corns, crushed
1 Vanilla Pod or 1 tbsp Extract.
10 Cardamom pods , crushed
1/4 Nutmeg, crushed or 1/2 tsp Ground Nutmeg
1 tsp Caraway Seeds
1/2 tsp Coriander Seeds
1” Root Ginger, finely chopped
5 strips mixed Orange & Lemon Peel
Simmer all the ingredients apart from the vodka and honey in 2 cups of water until the spices are well infused and the liquid a dark brown colour (around 5-10 minutes). Then add the honey and mix well, allow to cool for about an hour. Add the vodka, cover and leave to cool fully (if you don’t allow the mix to cool prior at adding the vodka you’ll evaporate all the alcohol and you don’t want that!!).
Leave to stand for up to a week, stir well, strain through a fine sieve and bottle it, tastes just like Christmas!
Take half a cup of instant coffee (powder or granules), one and a half cups of sugar, two cups of water and two tablespoons of vanilla extract. Heat the whole lot up to make sure everything is dissolved properly and then allow to cool. You should end up with three cups of coffee syrup, if you are a little short just add water.
Once the syrup is nicely down to room temperature add a 750ml of vodka and Robert’s your Mothers Brother there you have it, coffee liquor. Now you can drink it straight away but if I were you I would leave it a month in the bottle to “age” properly. I have tried mine (couldn’t wait) and it is a little over-powering so maybe an extra half cup of water in the mix wouldn’t hurt.
Ever fancied an Amaretto but have none in the cupboard because you are a Vodka person usually?
Take 1 cup water, 1 cup granulated white sugar and half a cup brown sugar and mix it all together whilst warming to make sure all the sugar is thoroughly dissolved. This drink is very sweet so you can cut back on sugar a little according to taste. Once the liquid is thoroughly cooled, add 2 cups cheap vodka, 2 tablespoons of almond extract and 2 teaspoons of vanilla. Mix the lot thoroughly and there you go, almost a litre of Amaretto for about 6 Euros. Happy, happy, happy!!
Complete experiment just to see what happens:
1 litre of pure apple juice (Wi nowt added and nowt teken owt) as they say
1 tsp brewers yeast
1 tsp yeast nutrient
800g sugar
4 litres water
1/8 tsp cream of tartar (This was meant to go in another recipe but I put it in this one by accident so I have included it here in the list)
Basically I put the apple juice, water and sugar into a demijohn making sure the temperature was up to around 25 Celsius and gave it a good mix to dissolve the sugar. Then in went the yeast, nutrient and finally by accident the cream of tartar and then it was all stirred again. Finally on went an airlock and the whole thing was stood to rest and is currently fizzing like a bottle of champage!!
That was 36 hours ago…. Now to leave to stand for a month or so and then I will decide if it needs racking or just leaving longer. I will keep you informed
I finally got the Elderflower Champagne under way.
Make sure everything is very well cleaned, use 1 tablespoon of bleach per gallon of water to wash all utensils and to rinse your fermentation container.
Heat a couple of litres of water enough to dissolve the 1kg of honey completely – No need to boil.
Put your Elderflowers, either really fresh ones or use dried ones but not ones that you picked any more than a couple of hours previously, into a pot which will be your fermenter.
Pour on the hot water/honey mix over the Elderflowers and then top up with enough cold water to make up to 5 litres and then put on one side to cool. If you have used fresh Elderflowers the natural yeast will cause the fermentation and you can put a tablespoon of cider vinegar in the mix now.
If you used dried Elderflowers wait for the mix to cool to between 25 and 30 degrees Celsius and then add a teaspoon of brewers yeast along with your cider vinegar.
Leave to ferment for 24 to 36 hours and then strain into strong plastic “pop” bottles where fermentation will continue. Do not use glass bottles, they will explode. For about another 24 hours leave the tops slightly lose so that gasses can escape and then tighten them fully for fermentation to continue.
Once they have cleared they are ready to drink, this will only be a couple of days but the longer you leave them the better. There will be quite a deep sediment in the bottles due to the continued fermentation so you may have to either pour very carefully or strain your drink through a coffee filter as you pour. Either way make sure you put in a fridge for a day before you open to kill of the yeast to make sure it all sinks.
This was Nicky’s experiment first off this morning. Not the best time for alcohol but it started the day off great
Grab a nice large mango, peel it and then cut up as much of the flesh as you can as close to the stone as possible so as not to miss anything. Throw out the peel and put all the flesh into a liquidiser with lots of crushed ice and a good chunk of fresh mint to your taste. Liquidise the lot and add a really good slug of white rum and then top up to about half a litre using soda water.
The final result is quite a thick drink and really refreshing
I totally forgot to keep you all up to date on my home brew attempts and so far you have missed a very nice Elderflower Mead, a not too bad Alcoholic Ginger Beer, a not too good Alcoholic Ginger Beer, Peach Wine which needs racking next week and a 40 pint batch of Bitter from a kit given to me about 18 months ago which actually tastes great.
Today I am going shopping for 6kg of sugar and a plastic bin with a lid. Why? Tune in next time to find out but on the list is more Elderflower Mead, more Ginger Beer and a few liquors The almonds are picked, the figs are about ready and the pomegranates won’t be much longer.
Watch this space!!