DIY - Orange Liqueur

I posted this in another thread¹ but, upon reflection, figured it could/should get its own thread-y spotlight.

The clip is from Alton Brown (from his video on Margaritas) on making your own, has been for me a bit of a game changer.

https://youtu.be/a85P5SBeYDs?t=39

I like that you can adjust the sugar up or down, tinker with the base spirit(s), and/or play with the orange varietals, etc., etc. For example, he suggests using vodka (2c.) with a bit of brandy (½ c.) as the spirituous base...but this might be an ideal opportunity to make use of some of the more, ahem, mass market-ish rum you may have loitering around searching for its purpose in life. I used the remains of a certain Puerto Rican white rum handle that materialized in my bar around New Year's, and a 375ml of its gold sibling.

You do whatever.

Anyway, I very strongly encourage you to give this a try.

P.S. If you don't have a sous vide rig, a slow cooker set on warm should do the trick. (You can double check the water temperature with an instant read thermometer, and then toggle between off and warm to keep it in the 150F-165F range and you'll be fine.)

¹ It was an offshoot to a discussion of how Senior Curacao has unfortunately devolved to an alarming degree.

[ Edited by jokeiii on 2022-04-30 06:18:06 ]

Thanks for this link. I'm a fan of Alton Brown--his grenadine recipe was the first syrup I ever made--so this recipe is very interesting. I don't have a sous vide, and my crockpot must be three or four decades old and doesn't have a warm feature, but I may still try to make something work.

If you feel slightly adventurous, search eBay for "dorkfood" (hey, I don't come up with these) which turns ANY non-digital Crock-Pot into a sous vide rig. Shouldn't run over $20.

Or...you could use a mini foam cooler. (Search for "Kenji cooler steak")

Otherwise it's the same deal with the instant read thermometer, only without the Warm setting you maybe twiddling the switch more frequently.

HTH!

For those looking for a non-sous vide option I recommend the curaçao recipe in Jeff Berry’s Potions if the Caribbean. Turned out great. The only cooking involved was roasting the orange peels in the oven.

Of course, the downside is take about 2 months to make. I made mine in 2014 and it’s still good.

We've been using variants of Jeff Berry’s recipe for several years. The batches age well and, depending on the rum and suguar you use, can be as light and dark in color and flavor as you like.

Our current batch is made with muscovado sugar and, if I remember correctly, Cruzan amber. It has a rich aroma and dark color. It doesn't work in every drink calling for orange liqueur because the muscovado aroma but I anticipate that in a few years it will be a treasured liqueur.

Once we get knobby oranges back in the store, I intend on buying a bunch for making another variant of orange liqueur.

I made some orancello back at Christmastime and gave little bottles of it out as gifts. Half navel orange and half mandarin orange peels steeped in everclear for a week, then brought down to proof and blended with simple syrup. Worked great as a stand in for my dwindling supply of curacao!

Sounds delicious! I'm gonna make a batch of that.