As a Kid i grew up opposite a Valencia orange orchard owned by an old miner, he used to sell the oranges at a roadside stall to complement his pension. The other hobby he had was making orange liqueur, all of this was done in an old tin shed, were there were literally hundreds of bottles racked & stacked, as a 14-17 year old i used to head over there after dinner some nights (my parents weren't fussed, as we were in the middle of farming country in the 1980's) most nights we would crack a bottle each and chat and drink, this stuff was like orange velvet, it was also very good at making your ears feel warm on a winter's night, i used to head home about 10pm'ish ... totally blitzed, never a hangover in the morning and i went to school as usual.
As someone with no previous knowledge or interest in distilling etc. RU-vid did good with the random video selection, these videos are fascinating and really enjoyable to watch.
Jesse! Chatted with you a bit ago about my getting into this hobby because of something like Cointreau. Commercial Orange Liquors are LOADED with sugars and glycerine. If you start making cocktails with what you have produced you'll find that they quite nice. What you have ended up with isn't too different than what I make: 1l neutral spirit(90-94% TFFV, Kale, Tomato, whatever) 1 Valencia orange peel 1 Navel orange peel 1 whole Mandarin Orange 5g Dried Curacao Orange peel (chunks, not powderacquired from local tea/herb shop) 1 lime peel I macerate all the peels in the neutral spirit, but I tie up and suspend the whole mandarine over the liquor. I let this all set for a solid week. Add water dilute to 35% and run it through the still. I then proof down and sweeten to where I am happy.
@@TheWoody576 That is correct. Alcohol Vapor Extraction. Takes a day or two to start off, but you'll see orange condensate on the orange and dripping into the maceration below. It comes out much lighter as well... Why? Because it does something. Is it worth it? I dunno. I suppose I should make a side-by-side next time But it sure looks cool :D
One of the “thickness” recipes for liqueur that used to circulating on forums was Base A=200g sugar & 120g liquid glucose Base B=150g sugar & 150g glucose Base C=300g sugar & 150g glucose. It adds the viscosity that liqueurs tend to have.
Drambuie is one I first tried to clone over 35 years ago. Scotch, honey and nutmeg were my starting point. You sure get a lot of mileage out of your airstill. Seems to be a very convenient little tool. Thanks Jesse
@@justsome-guy7596 I haven’t mixed up anything in years and years. The last addition that seemed to help was saffron. Anise and citrus vest (don’t remember if it was lemon or orange, I think lemon). We had a thread on HD forum ten or so years ago. I avoid sugar so I haven’t revisited the quest for years. Saffron is so bloody expensive, but it seems to be a key ingredient. Mace is a membrane around a nutmeg, I think I liked it too. Jesse’s subscribers will likely be able to nail it. I would love to know the secret, it is a warming truly delicious dram.
By definition, a liqueur has a sugar level of at least 100g per liter. Caster sugar works well. I have come very close to Cointreu using only dried bitter orange peel :D
Hey Jesse, I ended up here, now with a T500 and an Air Still from studying Cosmetic Chemistry, Go Figure! Anyway...Sorbitol may be the missing ingredient as this is used to sweeten mouthwashes and toothpaste. Sorbitol is a sugar alcohol and can be purchased in NZ from Pure Nature (Soap crafting wholesale) You can purchase the powdered form but I haven't seen it in NZ.
I've found when making this I get closer to the correct flavor profile when I add 1 pulled apart orange with the peels to gives it that thick mouth feel and marmalade cooked orange flavor
Very interesting to watch! My only attempt to make an orange liqueur was using the essences - and once I realised just how much sugar went into it, I never wanted to drink it ever again! I do like citrus flavour though, and have been adding some orange flavour to my "tequila" by suspending a tea ball with orange zest in it, over the finished brew for 3-7 days (just letting the vapour extract some flavour from the zest). This gives a nice, subtle touch of orange to my finished product, which I really like. It's not liqueur, though! ... but makes a nice low calorie drink with a squeeze of lime juice & some mineral water.
Another great video. I'd love to see your take on Drambuie. Makes for a delightful "rusty nail" (Drambuie and Scotch) but Drambuie on its own is quite incredible, and so the story goes that Bonnie Prince Charlie could not stand the whisky that was available to him while he was in hiding so he had his doctor or his apothecary tweak the whisky with herbs (and honey) and so we got Drambuie. ( Not certain, but I think the key ingredients might be honey Prince Charlie, would have almost certainly used heather honey, but any honey should be OK, star anise, nutmeg, orange zest, and perhaps rosemary. If I make this I would generally macerate the herbs and spices in the whisky with the honey but your technique is to distill them with the spirit and perhaps add the honey to sweeten before bottling...
As a dedicated How To Drink subscriber, I think a series on cocktail makings is brilliant! What about vermouth? Fortified wines are common mixers, and it could be interesting to try to approximate the flavor with your selection of distillate and base wine.
I make my own vermouth, but you don't really still it (although you can). It might be outside Jesse's scope. I know some vermouth manufacturers do distill some ingredients, but generally speaking, the bitterness is the point, and you just need to steep the botanicals, then add the appropriate percentage to pinot wine with some sugar.
I've made a orange liqueur in a similar process to yours just without distilling and I use bitter orange powder to bring up the marmaladey notes doesn't get rid of the top notes but it does bring in the marmalade flavour, I grabbed a bunch of bartenders that I know and compared the two and they I think four out of six picked mine over Cointreau in a blind taste test
Good evening from Oklahoma USA love the videos. I just finished my first spirit run in my pot still plum Brandy ended up with 1.25 us gallons at 60% it's really good as white dog
Generally marmalade oranges (Seville oranges) are only available in mid February until mid March. If you do retry this with marm oranges make sure to get bumpy skinned oranges, the knobblier the better
You CAN have a centrifuge…you don’t need to buy it. Just build a red neck one (I’ve done this). Build it as follows: 1. A 110 volt pump motor 2. 1/2-3/4” plywood 3. Necessary mounting hardware. Take one of the plywood sheets cut it round enough to fit 4 to 8 mason jars. Lay it on top of second sheet and cut second sheet to same round shape and size. Measure around mason jar and take a hole saw (or router) to cut out holes on one sheet that the mason jars fit easily through. Take mounting hardware and mount solid round sheet onto motor (make sure you got a strong enough motor) then use additional mounting hardware to mount top sheet to bottom sheet using grade 8 hardware. Then (if you want to get fancy) wire motor to a 110 VSC (variable speed controller) or just add your plug and let it run full speed every time. Hope that helps. PS. I usually have used 1HP motor
Looking forward to trying this recipe when I get settled down again. I love this channel and it has helped me make a LOT of great liquor. When I'm trying to replicate a sweet commercial product, the first thing I look at is the sugars in the nutrition label. The Cointreau label I found online shows 9g sugar for 1.25oz (37ml) so I would start with about 240g per liter and go from there.
it's validating to know your reason for getting into this hobby is the same as my reason to consider getting into it edit: I'm only doing macerations and simple stuff, currently thinking about doing something like a chili liqueur using cachaça as base. Incidentally what do you think about making cachaça?
I just did this last week! I was going for more of a Grand Marnier profile, so I used a relatively cheap commercial brandy as the spirit. I used the peels from several mandarins and 750ml of spirit. It’s far from a clone, but it should make a decent sidecar.
The method I use for sweetening liquors is to make the maceration or flavored distillation and separately make a simple syrup at about the right amount of sugar. Then use a dilution calculator (I do use the one on Chase The Craft) to figure out how much water to use to reach my target ABV, and substitute simple syrup for proofing with. Always comes out amazing (assuming I got the maceration or flavor run right).
Maybe, someone could add actual marmalade to a base spirit to macerate, might bring others closer to the requirements of an orange/triple sec liqueur? I dunno…🤷♀️
Steer away from fresh peels, dried peels are almost the standard, the flavor is much more concentrated and the drying process really does change the flavor.
This is funny, I'm looking at your channel because I'm trying to learn how to use a still and i find you found this hobby as a derivative of trying to fill out a bar and the first spirit that came to your mind was Cointreau. OMG SAME for me i first did Triple because in my country its rare to find and Cointreau is way to expensive for a 750ml bottle. A way more noob way to do TripleSec is to put in a sealed jar some 96%alc.vol. neutral with a thick peel orange (a full orange) hanging(i used some food mesh) inside WITHOUT it TOUCHING the spirit. You then seal the lid so no vapor comes out and leave it for about 21 days to a month. What this does is the juices in the peel will vaporize and mix with the alcohol giving it all of the flavours and aromatics with none of the colour. For the final part, just mix the infused alcohol with a very rich syrup and voila!!
Dude, thank you for working this out! I've wanted to make triple sec, but want certain where to start. I didn't want to just use a concentrate. Awesome!
Enjoyed following along this go. I'd definitely try adding glycerin. You've got me wondering how an orange marmalade "orange jelly" infusion would come out.
Hi I would have been very tempted to adding some marmalade to the first test as you said it was not sweet enough and topping up the some of the original vodka
I was just about to make triple sec when I saw this video come up. I was reading that unripe green orange peels are often used because they contain more essential oils, so I'm going to give that a shot. Thankfully there's a tree full of unripe oranges behind my house.
I don't know why but your shirts are six bucks a piece on into the am when I went to buy mine today. I took advantage and bought one for me and one for my wife.
I really appreciate this video Jesse, as I did the Lemoncello one. Got me wondering what would the liquor would taste like if you used lemon peel instead of orange peel. Bring on more liquor how to's!
I made Limoncello before and was going to do orange, lime, and Ruby red Grapefruit versions, but the girls I had working for me ended up mixing the peels together. Can't be too mad at them because they did so much other great work.
Thank you for your consistent cheerfulness and expertise! I was going to try making a concoction that is mostly frozen concentrate orange juice, sugar (perhaps brown sugar), and lightly spiced and ferment that and then do the air still thing. Any suggestions that may add to my best chances of turning this into an orange brandy? Za starovia! 😎👍
I used to macerate the orange in a jar with 100 proof alcohol without let the orange touch the alcohol. I think it will bring another profile from the zest oil.
A couple of weeks ago I looked at the fifth of Blackstrap Rum I had Oaking while I was eating a Tangerine. So I dropped the peel into the bottle, despite warnings that it would be too bitter from the Pith. Anyway, it turned out excellent. I want to start a distillery just to sell that.
Another great episode. I've also been trying to stock a bar, but it's taken awhile to nail the base spirits. One critique on the editing on this video though, I found that the audio of the main content was significantly quieter than the music and sponsored section. I ended up having to keep my hand on the speaker volume to even things out as I watched. Thanks for all the great videos and I look forward to more stocking the bar type content!
Probably better to use basic rule of thumb method.1 litre 40% spirit,1 kilo fruit or whatever,1 kilo sugar.Give it a shake every couple of days to mix sugar in.Leave for 1 month and then start checking to work out final time of maceration.Rack and then leave to mature.Making your own spirit gives heaps more options,eg,I use my own brandy to make a cumquat liqueur.You can then tweak this recipe,1 kilo of orange peel might be over the top for example.You can also play with different sugars or sugar syrup.Some of the more interesting liqueurs I have made include coffee,hazelnut,honey dew melon,blueberry,fejoia.
Oh that little still... I really want one. To bad it's not only illegal to distill alcohol, it's illegal to own a still here in Sweden. Which makes it a bit harder to get hold of one and make this hobby a real hobby (so far I've only made apple jack).
Jesse, I believe that Saville oranges might be what you are looking for, they definitely not sweet and thus might give you that flavor similar to Cointreau that you were looking for.
I hope you meant Seville 🤣 They're generally available across Europe, but only at certain times of the year. Which is about now (December) through to February.
0:01 Really interested. Ive tried perfecting cointreau for ages. Problem is getting the orange without the oils in a CLEAR spirt. Also they add loads of sugar ofc ... Anyway .. without the sugar bomb I always had a kinda not-right aftertaste. .... Anyway.. will comment again after watching. AMAZING CHANNEL btw
You mentioned the marmalade type flavours, do you think distilling a jar of orange marmalade in your neutral would be an option?? Going to give it a shot on my air still to see. Love the "stillperiments" you do.
What about using an orange simple syrup. To add the sweetness and the flavor. I haven’t made this but I have made an orange vanilla vodka that’s very sweet.
I'm ready to make my 1st rum. Need to double check the recipe and make sure I've got all of the ingredients, but I think I do. I don't make a lot of different drinks. On the rocks, neat or add coke, lol. I always enjoy the uploads 👍👍 Best Wishes !
Try putting a squirt of glycerine in there, it's a kind of sweetish kinda taste and/or mouthfeel and often used in liquors,it might Just give it that thing you might feel that it lacks
I want to make rectified spirits for extractions, not for drinking, yet stll want it to be food grade. Having troubles where to find videos for it. Polmos Spirytus is just too expensive for that. I know I can use molecular sieves to dry the spirit up, but what would I use to remove other impurities so it is relatively pure ethanol?
Hi Jessie. I saw a Brewzilla (looks like the new Gen4) in the background of your video. Do you use this for distilling? I’m looking at getting a 4” 4 plate copper still but not sure what boiler to get and I’m getting so many mixed opinions.
I have an idea 💡 could you maybe vapor infuse some orange flavour into it? A few different kinds of peal in the gin basket, I've been thinking about doing something like this
