Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Just wondering if anyone has made any of these??
In particular I would love to make a Tasmanian Pepper Berry Liqueur. Lark Distillery make one and it is amazing.
It's 32% ABV.

Was thinking of making a tincture with 95% neutral and soaking the berries and or leaves in that, then adding the stevia as per the Doc's flavored Vodka method.
Then sweeten it up some more and add a liqueur base for texture.

Any advice would be much appreciated. :-D

Never done one, but a few thoughts

Pepper would not need much time, and I think making a tincture is the way to go here.

What is in the liqueur base you plan to use? If you sweeten with sugar syrup this will add some texture but a bit of glycerine will add mouth feel.

I think you could be onto a winner, Lark make some good stuff :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Ive tried the Lark Pepperberry and although im not 100% sure (its a few drinks ago), i reckon it was a Pepperberry Gin :think:

If it is a gin, then maybe a different approach might be needed

No. Im wrong

My mistake. :violence-smack:

I just checked the site and there is also a Pepperberry Liqueur.

As you were Cu29 :whistle:

Urrazeb wrote:
What is in the liqueur base you plan to use? If you sweeten with sugar syrup this will add some texture but a bit of glycerine will add mouth feel.

Was thinking stevia for sweetness, but maybe sugar syrup is all that is needed. Hadn't decided what to use for texture but glycerine is probably a good place to start. It was quite syrupy from memory. Just waiting on my order of dried pepper berries so I will start experimenting soon and let u know how it goes.
Thanks for you help! :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Cu29 wrote:

Urrazeb wrote:
What is in the liqueur base you plan to use? If you sweeten with sugar syrup this will add some texture but a bit of glycerine will add mouth feel.

Was thinking stevia for sweetness, but maybe sugar syrup is all that is needed. Hadn't decided what to use for texture but glycerine is probably a good place to start. It was quite syrupy from memory. Just waiting on my order of dried pepper berries so I will start experimenting soon and let u know how it goes.
Thanks for you help! :handgestures-thumbupleft:

chances are, it is a simple sugar syrup base, combined with a tincture made by immersion in Azeo then broken with water to bring it down to drinking ABV. I would only use stevia if it starts to separate ... I am a diabetic so stevia is used in most of my formulas, but liqueurs really do need sugar syrup... Glycerine is OK to use, but it is not as forgiving as sugar, and contributes less to the flavour. I would imagine this would be nice served as a long cocktail with soda and a slice of lemon and perhaps a dash of bitters.
Doc

Thanks Doc,
I'll try the sugar syrup and add to taste first and let you know how it goes! :handgestures-thumbupleft:

There's a few good books about on the topic you might want to chase up if you don't already know of them. Cordial Waters is the one I have but there are heaps out there.

I'm working on building a collection of botanicals for perfecting flavour profiles later on.
So far I've only done a citrus (2L) and an apple (2L); I'm waiting on 7 varieties of vanilla beans to come in the post so vanilla is next on my hit list.
Here's the link for the eBay store with the vanilla beans: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Giant-Assort ... 640&_uhb=1

Cheers,

Mech.

Sorry for delay in progress report, I have made this a couple of times now and it is well received by my friends and family.
I sourced some dried pepperberries from Tas (pepperberry.net.au). I had no real idea of how much to use, I found a recipe for pepperberry infused vodka which used 3g per litre. this didn't sound like much so I doubled it. Whoops that was a mistake - way too spicy :o

So the next batch went like this:

3g dried pepperberries into 250mls of Azeo- infused for 1 day.
250mls sugar syrup
250mls filtered water.

I keep ours in the freezer and serve it on ice. It has an amazing warm floral and spice flavor. No one has just one!

Nice :handgestures-thumbupleft: thanks for the update! I have some pepperberry, but it is a fine powder so I'll reduce quantities greatly.

Hi all
AZEOTROPE: a mixture of two or more liquids in such a way that its components cannot be altered by distillation at a given pressure. At atmospheric pressure, ethanol and water form an azeotrope at 95.57%(by weight), higher percentages of ethanol can be obtained through vacuum distillation, adding a material separation agent or through molecular sieving

Pardon my ignorance, I have copied the above from this forums glossary, is this what is being referred to as an Azeo?

[quote="Cu29"
Sorry for delay in progress report, I have made this a couple of times now and it is well received by my friends and family.

3g dried pepperberries into 250mls of Azeo- infused for 1 day.
250mls sugar syrup
250mls filtered water.
Thanks Mick.

Correct, kicka, azeo is short for azeotrope.

When we talk about Azeo it doesn't necessarily need to be 95.57% to work, anything above 90% ABV should work well enough if you can't hit azeo (which you won't be able to do with your pot ;-) )

Thanks Zak
Nah Penny won't get me there. :laughing-rolling:
Cheers Mick.

Seems that this is an old thread and not much info on the results people got, so any help would be greatly appreciated. I have 2kgs of fresh pepperberrys and read in this thread it was done with dried berries. Any ideas on how I should go about this with fresh berries. I have an infusion basket, was thinking of running the still with a wheatbix wash and stuffing the basket with the berries. Or am i better off steeping them in 95% neutral. :think:

Fresh ingredients are much more intense, up to 10x as potent, but you will just have to experiment to get it to where you like, soaking in lower abv for a longer time may bring different nuances through

Try it both ways, but you will be better off running 40% hearts with the basket, otherwise you will loose a bunch of flavours to the heads and tails when you do cuts from running a wash

RC Al wrote:Fresh ingredients are much more intense, up to 10x as potent, but you will just have to experiment to get it to where you like, soaking in lower abv for a longer time may bring different nuances through

Try it both ways, but you will be better off running 40% hearts with the basket, otherwise you will loose a bunch of flavours to the heads and tails when you do cuts from running a wash

Thanka mate. I think I'll run it with the 40% hearts. Sounds a better way.