The fruit has all been so tasteless this year (plums, damsons, mirabelles, & sloes) that I decided not to make any liqueurs; it is a massive amount of effort, and if the end result is going to be disappointing [which it has been other times I've used less-than-stellar fruit], and I have wanted to protect my shoulders from the pain that all the bending over causes.
Fingers crossed the liqueurs I made last Christmas/New Year don't fall into the wish-I-hadn't-bothered category...
[Not yet decanted because the problems with my wrist/shoulders and then the wrist surgery/problems with my shoulders have left me barely able to cope with essential gardening on our trips to the house, so "extras" have had to wait. Maybe my lovely assistant will help when we're next there...?]
Friday 8 November 2013
Wednesday 3 July 2013
Elderflower liqueur
When we were last in France, the weather went very warm, and would have been perfect for making the elderflower liqueur I'd planned to make...
Except that we went to Paris for a wedding [which was lovely!], and then we had a load of plants that needed to planted more urgently.
And then, of course, it started raining! So I couldn't pick the flowers because they were wringing wet.
Finally, we had a warm, dry morning, and I picked about 34 heads of elderflowers, and took the flowers off as much of the stem as possible. Filled a 1.5 litre jar and filled with alcohol.
I think I've probably left it too late, and the rain may have washed away to best of the flavour, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed!
Sunday 26 May 2013
I finished the year on a high note!
Seems a bit redundant, posting about 2012 ending when we're fast approaching the middle of 2013, but I'm trying to catch up, so here goes:
On 27 December, I spent over six hours cleaning and sterilising bottles, and started to decant the liqueurs that were already in bocaux...
Did I need the bocaux to empty the freezer of sloes and pig damsons?
Why do you ask?
;-)
December 29 I worked in a t-shirt till 6.30pm before lighting the fire.
And by 6.15pm on New Year's Eve, I'd decanted all the liqueurs in the cupboard [bar two jars that contain still-edible fruit - I'm keeping them in the liqueur till we finish the fruit (which is yummy with ice cream)], and emptied the freezer into another set of liqueurs-in-progress
I'm going to leave them as long as possible until decanting this set (and am hoping to buy some more bocaux so that I'm not constantly running short; we sometimes see them at dépôts-vente for €0.50 for the large ones and €0.30 for the small ones, so it's worth waiting till I find them [in England they tend to be about £6.99 each!] with the exchange rate giving us €1.18 to the £).
It's quite a nice feeling now: just waiting for the mirabelle, pig-damson and damson trees to work their magic!
On 27 December, I spent over six hours cleaning and sterilising bottles, and started to decant the liqueurs that were already in bocaux...
Did I need the bocaux to empty the freezer of sloes and pig damsons?
Why do you ask?
;-)
December 29 I worked in a t-shirt till 6.30pm before lighting the fire.
And by 6.15pm on New Year's Eve, I'd decanted all the liqueurs in the cupboard [bar two jars that contain still-edible fruit - I'm keeping them in the liqueur till we finish the fruit (which is yummy with ice cream)], and emptied the freezer into another set of liqueurs-in-progress
I'm going to leave them as long as possible until decanting this set (and am hoping to buy some more bocaux so that I'm not constantly running short; we sometimes see them at dépôts-vente for €0.50 for the large ones and €0.30 for the small ones, so it's worth waiting till I find them [in England they tend to be about £6.99 each!] with the exchange rate giving us €1.18 to the £).
It's quite a nice feeling now: just waiting for the mirabelle, pig-damson and damson trees to work their magic!
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