Christmas Eve and I needed to decant my macerating liqueurs in time to give them as gifts and enjoy them myself. The first task was to prepare the bottles. I’d put aside some half and quarter litre bottles, which I’d bought specially for the task, they were full of wine at the time, but I soon put paid to that, I needed the bottles, but they come free when you buy the wine and it would be a shame to waste it.
Getting the labels off is easy, soak in hot water till the label is soaked and the glue underneath it warmed, so it peels off easily or at least scrapes off easily with a thumb nail, if there is residue left I have a great trick which I got from Pinterest. Rather than use Sticky Stuff Remover which is petroleum based and toxic , so not a good thing to use on bottles for consumables, I use plain old cooking oil made into a paste with bicarbonate of soda. Rub on… rub off, wash it with liquid soap, Presto, crystal clean bottles.
First I strained the Coffee Orange Liqueur through muslin, the smell was incredible, and very conveniently when I had bottled it there was just enough to fill a glass to taste it before I made it into stocking fillers.
The glass was a bargain, another charity shop find, 4 little Victorian sherry glasses, £2, and another 2 crystal liqueur glasses, a pound each, they will be going in stockings along with the liqueurs, just in case the recipients don’t have a suitable glass to serve it in.
Then I strained the Damson gin off the damsons (which I then heated in a pan, to burn off the alcohol, they look like mini prunes, and will be going on my morning porridge ) and strange to say when I had bottled the Damson gin, there was again just enough to fill a glass to quality check the produce, how lucky is that?
The Coffee Orange Liqueur is lovely, but the Damson Gin is DIVINE, like liquid Damson, not too sweet, doesn’t taste of alcohol it just tastes of the most wonderful, concentrated damson flavour, which is pretty hard to beat, particularly in something “homemade”.
