From time to time, our sweet tooth acts up. Suddenly, we crave everything from candy bars to cookies to cupcakes. And we can’t stop. After suffering through the resulting food comas and realizing that gorging ourselves on sweets wasn’t the best idea, we decided to seek our sweetness elsewhere. And of course, that brought us to liqueurs.
Liqueurs rock. They’re sweet, flavorful, easy to mix with, and most importantly, they’re alcoholic. So, in honor of National Liqueur Day, we’re going to be making our favorite liqueurs from scratch. They’re classics that you’ll be sure to love. Yum.
You’ll need:
10 lemons
1 (750-ml) bottle vodka
3 1/2 cups water
2 1/2 cups sugar
Peel the lemons, setting the fruit aside. Then, after peeling the white part off of each peel, place the peels in a pitcher. Pour the vodka into the pitcher, cover it with plastic wrap, and let it sit for four days. The lemon flavor is soaking into the vodka.
Stir the water and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Let it cool completely. Pour the sugar mixture into the vodka mixture. Cover it, and let it sit overnight. Then, strain the mixture, removing the lemon peels, and transfer the liqueur into bottles to be refrigerated.
You’ll need:
4 cups white sugar
4 cups water
3/4 cup instant coffee granules
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
4 cups vodka
Stir the water and sugar in a saucepan, bringing it to a boil and then letting it simmer for 10 minutes. Remove the saucepan from heat, add the instance coffee granules, and let it cool. Once cool, stir in the vanilla extract and the vodka. Let stand. Pour into bottles and store in a cool, dark place.