Comments on: How to make a delicious raspberry cordial/liqueur?

Question: How to make a delicious raspberry cordial/liqueur?

charlesroper — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 14:09:32 -0800

Does anyone have a good cordial/liqueur recipe that uses fresh berries and everclear? If so, please share!

It's July and, in Oregon, that means it's time to enjoy all sorts of fresh berries. We have a lot of Marion Berries and Raspberries to use up and thought we'd start making some cordials for holiday gifts. We have lots of sugar, everclear and wine bottles along with the fruit and just need a recipe to put it all together.

Any help is much appreciated. Thanks!

By: Malor

Malor — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 14:30:59 -0800

I didn't make any of these myself, but I had a friend who did a lot of this. From what I could tell, she carefully cleaned the fruit and filled a large jar with them, filled it up solid with Everclear, capped it, and let it soak for a month or so. She then strained it through cheesecloth, squished as much juice as possible out of the pulp, and kept all the liquid. I think it usually ended up being about half the volume of the original container, so if you want a full bottle of berry liqueur, you'll need at least 2 and maybe 3 'stewing' containers of volume equal to your final bottle.

If anyone has specific recipes, pay attention, this was just from watching over her shoulder once. :)

By: Vervain

Vervain — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 15:00:32 -0800

I've had great luck with the liqueur recipes found here. It's a ridiculously thorough site, although there aren't any marionberry-specific concoctions. He's got a blackberry brandy recipe that'll knock your socks off; I bet you could substitute marionberries with no ill effects.

By: Captain_Science

Captain_Science — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 15:41:25 -0800

My grandfather used a recipe about the same as the one Malor suggests except he would soak the berries in about a cup of sugar for a day or two first, then add the alcohol. I've tired it a few times (though with frozen berries) and it's always came out alright. Id say high quality alcohol is almost more important then the fresh berries though, even with the fruit you can really taste it when it's the cheap stuff.

By: jtfowl0

jtfowl0 — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 16:01:45 -0800

Or go ahead and use the cheap stuff, but run it through a Brita (or other charcoal-based) filter first.

By: jtfowl0

jtfowl0 — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 16:05:59 -0800

Hrmmmm....here's a link that works.

By: charlesroper

charlesroper — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:38:31 -0800

Thanks. Used a combination of a bunch of different recipes on that website to create a concoction of my own.

Made two separate 3-gallon batches tonight. One of Marion Berries, one of raspberries. Each batch contains TWO full (triple filtered) bottles of Everclear.

This is going to be a fun winter :)

Again, thanks for your help everyone - just what I was looking for!

By: Malor

Malor — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 06:16:22 -0800

Sounds great, charles. I think I may try something similar. :)