Homemade Liqueurs and Infused Spirits by Andrew Schloss – Item of the Day
Every day I bring you an item on Amazon that I personally use or has been purchased by many members of the audience and I have researched enough to recommend.
Today’s TSP Amazon Item of the day is the book, Homemade Liqueurs and Infused Spirits by Andrew Schloss. This is the best book I have found for beginning your journey into the alchemy of making your own liqueurs.
What I like about this book is it is both a book of recipes and a book of how to with a good introduction into the how what and why of making your own liqueurs.
If you can think of the high end 30 dollar a bottle and up fancy smancy liqueur this book will show you how to make a reasonable approximation of it for 10-25% of the cost. It will also give you confidence by following known recipes and I find many people need this to then spring board off into their own concoctions.
To be totally up front I do have one major criticism of this book, it does have some true “filler”. With some exceptions the majority of the recipes call for the same procedure. There are in fact about a total of 2 procedures that make up 90% of the recipes. These could have been called say
- The muddle with sugar and alcohol method and
- The muddle with alcohol and add sugar at the end method
Instead every recipe basically repeats the same methods over and over, and I would bet this was clearly to fill out to the book to satisfy the publisher. With that one change this book would likely drop from 272 pages to say about 150-170. Still plenty of information but hey, people like thick books for some reason I guess and as I always say, “the market is gonna market”.
That said there is nothing wrong with this book. It gives you concise information and teaches you how to make various simple syrups as well, this way you can make brown syrups, caramelized syrups and cream syrups and really make anything you could ever find at a bottle shop liqueur wise.
I am talking Chambord, Gran Marnier, Kaulua, Poire William, you name it. This stuff is great fun and a real passion of mine, so much so that today’s show will be all about this subject.
The best part is while you could make much of this stuff with “fuel that accidentally spills into your mouth”, and you just might, but it can all be made perfectly legally with spirits bought in the store, you enhance the value and pocket the difference. While some of this calls for things like rum or brandy, most of it can be made with simple vodka, and if you tune into episode 1923, I am even going to tell you how to turn things like vodka into rum.
Finally all the equipment you likely already have in your kitchen, you may need a few extra jars and bottles but as to the making, any decent kitchen will already have everything you will need to get started right away. So check out, Homemade Liqueurs and Infused Spirits by Andrew Schloss today and start turning 7 dollar bottles of vodka into top end 30 dollar bottles of liqueur.
Remember you can always find all of our reviews at TspAz.com
P.S. – Because it was so stupid cheap I purchased the Kindle edition of this book to evaluate it. I tend to loathe hard copies of most books at this point in my life but like most “cook books” I have to say the hard copy would be better. So much so that I just ordered it even though I have it in Kindle. Either will work fine but I think most people will be happier with hard copy on this one. This is the type of book that lives with other cook books in your kitchen.
Sounds good, but through my experience one can’t make anything decent with 80 proof stuff because any additions water-down the proof. Therefore, to make for instance cherry liqueur, you need to buy Everclear for thirty-some bucks a bottle. Vodka would be way too weak. I always wondered why cheap stuff like Everclear costs so much. Tax?
Well tune in today to learn first how to calculate final alcohol and how to adjust accordingly. As to everclear being “expensive” it is all the application.
One can take everclear and water it down to say 130 proof as a starting point to end up with a liqueur of say 70 proof, and it is expensive. But one can take cheap 100 proof vodka and use everclear to bring it up to 130 before starting the infusion and it costs a lot less. Not to mention much of this stuff is generally about 40-60 proof if you buy it in a store and most recipes get you right in that range.
Like me you probably like stuff a bit higher which is fine but there is no need to go blowing up your liver or something like that.
Used this to make their lemoncello. Fantastic and easy!