Post #757103 by mikehooker on Mon, Jan 11, 2016 11:20 AM

Alright, so my first batch is done. I tried to make cold process rich sugar syrup in a small Kitchenaid mixer and after a couple minutes of blending it was just cloudy with tons of excess sugar floating up to the top of the container so I decided to pour it into bottle and shake like crazy. Paul Clarke says to shake for 5 minutes. Swiz said shake a bit and let it rest, then repeat a few times over 10 minutes. My wife found something online that says just let it sit for 45 minutes and all the sugar will dissolve. Well I shook... and shook... and shook... and shook with several minutes rests in between over the course of an hour and the sugar never dissolved. So I said screw it and boiled that down which took like one minute but I didn't want to wait for that to cool before mixing with my 24 hour zest/clove/ginger solution so I just grabbed rich sugar syrup I had previously made (hot process) that I store at room temperature and mixed it with the solution, added appropriate almond extract and lime juice and voila, I have something that resembles Falernum #8!

We put it to the test....

My wife, three friends and I all tried the three options and the reviews were pretty mixed. Ultimately, they are all very different. Velvet is a mild flavored liqueur, Fees is a thick sweetened syrup, and the homemade had nice flavor but I wouldn't say it was hands down the winner. Everyone seems to swear by homemade falernum saying it's life changing and you'll never go back to store bought, but I gotta say, it didn't blow me away. For one, the added lime juice at the end made it too citrus-y. Next time I will omit that because the zest does plenty to bring in the citrus element. But at the end of the day, all three options have their merits and entirely different flavors so the ultimate test will be seeing how they fare in mixed cocktails to determine which works best. I anticipate depending on the cocktail, any one of these can reign supreme.

Once I get near the end of this bottle I'll do my next batch using LH151 as my overproof rum, leave out the lime juice, and either increase the almond extract or include toasted almonds because the ginger and lime completely overshadow any of the flavor the 1/4 tsp of extract may have provided.