The Connoisseur's Guide To Making Liqueurs Vol. II

By Christopher Bruce

The Connoisseur’s Guide to Making Liqueurs Vol.II is a collection of 88 recipes, illustrated with color photos of equipment and original liqueur labels. Chris Bruce demonstrates the different liqueur making methods and the equipment required to make liqueurs for every occasion. Chapters include an Introduction, Legality, Ingredients, Equipment, Production Methods, Notes on the Recipes, Your First Attempt, Recipe Maintenance, Additives and 88 Recipe Schedules with Instructions, Conversion Tables, a Costing Example and Useful Definitions. This complete guide provides recipes for delicious homemade liqueurs, including fruit nut herb and cream-based liqueurs The Connoisseurs Guide To Making Liqueurs has been written in two volumes, Vol.1. & Vol. II, and is the most complete work on home liqueur making available in the market. All the recipes in Vol. II are presented in Recipe Schedule form with detailed instructions for making each recipe using a variety of alcohol bases and both common and exotic fruits, coffee and cream.The content of this book, VOL II., is the same as that of Vol.I, except for the further 88 recipes it contains, and is a stand alone book which can be bought and used separately.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christopher Bruce
• Release date: Jul 25, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301864492

Christopher Bruce

Chris Bruce was born in England and educated in South Africa. After a long career in the construction industry in South Africa, Namibia, Hong Kong and the Philippines, Chris moved to Thailand in 2001. He built and equipped a sausage factory in Bangkok which was operated by his wife. Not being Thai, unable to speak the language, no longer a part of the construction “EXPAT NETWORK” due to the slump in the Asian construction industry, it was not long before he became somewhat bored with life. One way to alleviate the boredom was to write. Chris decided to use his knowledge of the sausage industry to write a book of sausage recipes. This was followed by a book of recipes for preparing meals using sausage and a book of liqueur making methods and recipes. After completing the three recipe books he encouraged friends from around the world to send him jokes and cartoons by email. This series of TAKE ME TO THE TOILET BOOKS (VOLS I to VII) is the result of the huge response he got. Chris makes no claim to have dreamt up the jokes, anecdotes and other amusing facts or stories featured in these volumes and in fact it is impossible, with very few exceptions, to say where the jokes originated. Two Thai cartoonists Kitti Meeboonnum and Wirat Sukcharoen provided the illustrations. One thing Chris did realize was that people do not have much time to read a little humour and the “Thunderbox”, as it used to be called, is the ideal place to do so. The internet, the source of much modern humor, is not normally accessible during visits to this most private of places and it is hoped that these “TOILET COMPANIONS” will add amusement to the otherwise idle moments spent in the “BOX”.

Book preview

THE CONNOISSEUR’S GUIDE TO MAKING

LIQUEURS

VOL I

By

Christopher James Bruce

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

Christopher James Bruce

The Connoisseur’s Guide to Making Liqueurs Vol. I

Copyright © 2013 by Christopher James Bruce

Acknowledgements

It would be impossible to acknowledge all the people who have in some way or another, knowingly or unknowingly made a contribution to this book. I have not credited individuals with particular recipes because the same recipes frequently appear in different publications with no mention of the original author’s identification. The situation is further complicated by the fact that many published recipes are so similar that they are no more that poorly disguised copies of other recipes. Who developed which variation or which recipe is the original is impossible to tell. The only way that I can acknowledge all of you for your contributions is to say a very big thank you to you all. Once again my heartfelt thanks go out to all of you who have shared your own and your family’s handed down recipes and advice and research into liqueur making and made it available to the public at large. I am very grateful indeed to all of you who have in some way provided me with the information or advice that I needed to produce this book.

C.J.Bruce, Bangkok, Thailand, July 2004.

Back to Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1 Introduction

CHAPTER 2 Legality

CHAPTER 3 Liqueurs

CHAPTER 4 Ingredients

CHAPTER 5 Equipment

CHAPTER 6 Production Methods

CHAPTER 7 Notes on the Recipes

CHAPTER 8 Your First Attempt

CHAPTER 9 Recipe Maintenance

CHAPTER 10 Additives

CHAPTER 11 Recipe Schedules

CHAPTER 12 Conversion Tables and Costing Example

CHAPTER 13 Useful Definitions

BIBLIOGRAPHY

RECIPE PRODUCTION TIMES

OTHER BOOKS

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Judging by the wealth of information appearing in the press, published works and on the internet, liqueur making is definitely not a dying art. As an enthusiastic liqueur maker I consider it more an art to die for! It is not difficult to make liqueurs but can be very time consuming, especially when making the more complex varieties. Through my own research I realized that the wealth of information available can take days or weeks and sometimes longer to access and that this can make the home liqueur making business very tedious, frustrating and time consuming. In this book, the first of two on the subject, I have attempted to provide the new home liqueur maker with a consolidated, simplified description of the procedures to be followed if you want to make very good liqueurs of your own and good imitations of well known commercial brands. There are 95 recipes included in this book, all of them standardized to yield as close to 750 ml of liqueur as possible. When possible I have provided more than one option in each recipe category, some simple and instant and some more complicated and requiring more time to produce.

I have made no attempt to go into the chemistry of liqueur making. Unless you intend to produce liqueurs on a commercial basis there is no need to delve into the chemical processes that cause fruit flavors to be transferred from the fruit to the alcohol base or that may give the finished liqueur its nose. I have left that to the professionals who have written numerous books and treatises on the subject. This book is therefore limited to the procedures to be followed when making liqueurs at home.

Producing your own liqueur is economical (provided that you don’t take into account the cost of your own labor!). If you own a garden you can use the fruits, berries or nuts from your own trees and grow many of the herbs and spices required for liqueur making. If you don’t have your own garden it is still far more economical to buy the ingredients from your local home brew store or supermarket and to produce your own liqueur for as little as a quarter of the cost of the commercial equivalent. Another advantage to making your own liqueur is that you can produce an almost endless variety from the hundreds of fruits, berries, nuts, herbs and spices now readily available. Regardless of the cost of your time and provided that you follow the basic procedures, you will find liqueur making a very relaxing and satisfying hobby.

The general procedure for making liqueurs is to take an alcohol base such as brandy, whiskey, vodka, grain alcohol (otherwise known as neutral spirit) or wine spirit (which is often used in France and Germany)