Give the gift of homemade booze: 23 easy recipes for DIY liqueur (2024)

FAQs

What is the easiest home made alcohol to make? ›

Hard Apple Cider is definitely the easiest way to go. There is a recipe on HomeBrewTalk that is very popular as it's extremely easy to make. Essentially you get red wine yeast and mix it with 5 Gallons of store bought apple juice and 2 pounds of dextrose. You need a carboy and an airlock, but that's it.

I'll make batches of the spirits and keep them in jugs until I'm ready to bottle them as gifts. If you are making the spirits and bottling before the “drink date” just make a note on your gift tag letting your recipient know when the ideal time will be to crack open that bottle! No reason not to make these this year.

In English, moonshine is also known as mountain dew, choop, hooch (abbreviation of hoochinoo, name of a specific liquor, from Tlingit), homebrew, mulekick, shine, sneaky pete, white dog, white lightning, white/corn liquor, white/corn whiskey, pass around, firewater, and bootleg.

Moonshine is a high-proof liquor produced illegally without government authorization. It is called moonshine because it is traditionally illegally distilled during the night to avoid being discovered by law enforcement.

Gin & Tonic or Vodka & Soda: For many, this is a good starter drink. Order a well spirit (whiskey, rum, gin, vodka, etc) with club soda or tonic water. The formula is basically liquor and a fizzy drink.

Use a clean, nice-looking tea towel and fold it in half on a flat surface. Place your bottle of liquor between the 2 layers of the tea towel and roll the bottle until it's tightly wrapped in the tea towel. Tie a ribbon around the neck of the bottle to secure it and you're set to give 2 gifts at the same time!

Hard liquors can get you drunk faster than beer or wine, as they have a higher alcohol content. Doing shots can be particularly useful, as you'll be absorbing high alcohol products very fast. Vodka in particular has been shown to increase the speed of intoxication.

Contrary to liquors, liqueurs contain much more sugar and are often used as flavoring agent in a co*cktail. So simply said a liqueur is a liquor with added sugar, flavors, and often (though not always) has a lower proof. Examples of liqueurs are Curaçao Liqueurs, Disaronno, Bailey's, Amaretto, etc.

What is the best alcohol to make a liqueur? ›

Most homemade liqueurs start with vodka. This spirit is an ideal base for liqueurs because it's colorless and flavorless, making it the perfect blank canvas.

It works like this: Pick a juice with at least 20g of sugar per serving, add a packet of specially designed yeast, plug the bottle with an airlock, and wait 48 hours. Just like the fermentation process used in winemaking, the juice's natural sugar is converted into ethanol, with a byproduct of carbon dioxide.

Liqueur should be stored in a cool, dark place and ideally upright. Once opened, the bottle should be tightly closed and consumed within a year. Ensure clean and sterile working conditions to extend the shelf life of your liqueur. This also includes the use of sterilized bottles and equipment.

Making alcohol is easy. Take a sugary liquid, add sugar-eating yeast, and wait. Sanitation is the most important part of any fermentation process. You want to make sure everything that touches your liquid pre- and post-ferment has been fully sterilized with a no-rinse sanitizer.

Alcohol is made by putting grains, fruits or vegetables through a process called fermentation. This is a chemical reaction where yeast or bacteria react with the sugars in the other ingredients to produce ethanol (the alcohol in the drink) and carbon dioxide (which can mean the drink has bubbles).

As the simplest alcohol, methanol differs from water in the presence of a methyl group. Compared to the water molecule, methanol has only one donor and one or two HB acceptor sites [1].

A light rum will be your workhorse for most co*cktails, from the Daiquiri to the Mojito. As a secondary rum, take your pick of aged, dark, or spiced rum. Each has its own purpose, and which you choose will depend on your taste and the drinks you enjoy.