Apple tincture at home: how to make

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

At harvest time, it often turns out that a lot of apples did not wait until they were carefully removed from the branches, and fell to the ground themselves. From the impact, brown “bruises” appeared on their liquid sides. The apples are still good, tasty… But the goods are already illiquid, especially since because of these dents, the fruits quickly rot. What to do with such fruits? You can bake a pie - "Tart Tatin", for example, or charlotte. But not so many apples go into baking - a kilogram, well, two. And if you have a garden, and you are racking your brains, what to do with twenty kilograms of illiquid fruit? That's when homemade apple tincture comes to mind. It is so tasty that for the sake of its preparation, you can even go to the market and buy the fruit yourself. And then, after three or four months, when winter comes, savor the amber drink and remember the summer. Do not think that the preparation of tinctures at home is associated with cunning moonshine stills that will occupy two-thirds of the area of \u200b\u200byour apartment. No, this process is simple and labor-intensive. In this article, we will tell you in an accessible way how to make apple tincture at home. You just have to follow the step by step instructions. WeHere are some recipes so you can choose the right one for you.

A little more theory

Tinctures, liqueurs, balms… All of these alcoholic drinks are easy to make at home. But the production process is different. In Russia, until the sixties of the eighteenth century, only liqueurs were known. The fruits went through wine fermentation. They filled the drink with their juice, gained a degree. With the introduction of the state monopoly on vodka and, accordingly, the reduction in the cost of the product, there was also a tincture of apples at home. This drink is prepared in a radically different way. Fruits are simply poured with alcohol (or vodka) and infused until alcohol and juice become one organic whole.

Tinctures were given different names. If no water was added to the drink, such a strong alcohol was called "Erofeich". Herbal tinctures were called balms. By the way, they were often used for medical purposes. Often drinks were called by the name of the product from which they were made: anise, pear, cherry. Of course, not all herbs and fruits can be infused. For this purpose, only those fruits (as well as seeds, spices and herbs) that contain biologically active substances and essential oils are suitable. Therefore, the variety of apples is of great importance. Some are good for cider and others for liqueur. And, of course, thanks to folk ingenuity, many recipes have appeared on how to make apple tincture. We will look at just a few of them.

Ingredients

The main and decisive components in tinctures are, of course, fruits and alcohol. This short food list seems to narrow down the list of recipes considerably. However, experimenting with types of alcohol, varieties of apples, and flavorings such as sugar or cinnamon can lead to a wide range of flavors. Sweet as liquor, homemade apple tincture with a strength of thirty degrees has a pleasant taste and can be served with dessert. Do not forget about bitter drinks made from fruits, like Benedictine. Such tinctures can be used as a remedy for colds. If apples are poured with alcohol, then you can reach a fortress of forty-five degrees, which is very popular with the representatives of the stronger sex. And fruit can be insisted on vodka or moonshine. What can we say about the apples themselves! Fresh - antonovka or white filling, dried with a slight smoky aroma, and even small, heavenly … Adam's apple tincture is also good in terms of healing properties. The preparation of all these drinks differs in technology. Some of them will be ready in two months, while others can be savored in a week and a half. The manufacturing process can be accelerated by heating the drink to fifty degrees. Store the tincture in a dark and tightly stoppered bottle in a cool place.

Apple tincture with vodka

This is the most common ingredient in homemade alcoholic drinks. Vodka is easier to get than alcohol. But do not think that you can use the cheapest and poor-quality brand for liquor. No, vodka should stretch, notflow, warm, not burn. The taste of the resulting tincture directly depends on the softness and quality of alcohol. But apples can be taken illiquid. Anyway, we will remove all bruises and wormholes from them. So here's the first recipe. Apple tincture on vodka, prepared according to his instructions, will be ready in two months.

There is a lot of debate about whether the fruit should be peeled. Many agree that the skin gives the drink a piquancy. In any case, the apples should be washed, and then cut into narrow slices, simultaneously removing bruises and the core with seeds. We put this raw material (it should be two and a half kilograms) in a large bottle. Fill the apples with vodka - you need a liter and a half. Now you need to dilute it with water. To achieve a harmonious taste, you need to take seven liters. To prevent a thermal reaction, the water should be cooled. We wrap the bottle with gauze and expose it to the sun for two weeks. Shake contents daily. After that, we filter the infusion. We add two kilograms of sugar to the liquid and put it in the sun for two days. Then we keep another ten days in a cool place. And only after this time we filter through gauze, bottle and cork. The drink is ready after three weeks of storage.

Quick Recipe

There are many ways to speed up the cooking process. This recipe for apple tincture recommends not hiding the bottle in a cool and dark place, but keeping it in the light (preferably on a sunlit windowsill) for two weeks. Volumecontainers also matter. We take only a dozen large sour apples, cut them, as in the previous recipe, and fill them with the same amount of vodka. We will not add water and sugar. Just cover the neck of a three-liter jar with a paper lid so that the tincture "breathes". After two weeks, carefully strain the liquid, bottle the drink. And already we clean them in a dark and cool place. You can savor the tincture immediately. As you can see, this recipe is very simple and, most importantly, fast. It's good for early apple varieties when you can hope for two weeks of clear, sunny weather.

Lady's drink

This apple tincture recipe will only take you a week to make. Cut the fruit along with the peel into thin slices. Discard the cores with seeds. Apples in this form should be a kilogram. We put the fruit slices in a three-liter jar. Fill with a liter of vodka. We cover the container with gauze or a lid made of oiled paper. It is important for us that the liquid “breathes”, but at the same time that insects do not get into it. We put the jar in a cool and dark place. After a week, all the fruits will be crowded at the very neck of the container. Carefully separate the liquid from the apple pulp. Separately, prepare the syrup. In half a liter of water we dissolve two hundred grams of granulated sugar. Bring the syrup to a boil, and then cool to forty degrees. We dissolve in it and a few pinches of ground cinnamon. We mix both liquids and carefully filter into two 0.75-liter bottles. The resulting tincture of apples at home hasbeautiful golden yellow color and pleasant sweet and sour taste. You can store it not in the refrigerator, but in a cabinet to protect it from direct sunlight.

Cognac tincture

Thanks to this alcohol base, the drink acquires an interesting aroma and flavor. Apples for tincture should be chosen hard, preferably late varieties - Renet, Pepin, Calvil, Grushovka, Antonovka. We grind them together with the peel - but, of course, without seed boxes and rotten parts. One and a half kilograms of apple pulp will require a liter of cognac. Pour the fruit slices so that the liquid level is a centimeter or two above the layer of fruit. At first, the cognac will easily cover all the apples, but after a few seconds it will be absorbed by the pulp. Therefore, you need to wait a quarter of an hour to add alcohol. This recipe for apple tincture instructs us to seal the jar with a nylon lid so that the cognac does not erode. The container should be in a warm and dark place for about ten days. After that, drain the liquid. Cognac-soaked apples can be used for desserts. Pour half a liter of water into a saucepan, put on fire. Gradually add three hundred grams of sugar. Stirring, bring to a boil and cook for another five minutes, regularly removing the foam. Then cool the syrup to room temperature. Mix it with cognac. After two or three hours, home-made brandy apple tincture is almost ready. It remains to filter it and bottle it. The strength of this drink varies from fifteen to twenty degrees. It can be stored for more than a year in a dark and coollocation.

Moonshine

Before we tell you how to make an apple tincture on this type of alcohol, we note that in this case a sweet drink will not work. The fact is that when in contact with sugar syrup, moonshine gives an unpleasant aftertaste. But the tincture is quite strong - about thirty-five degrees. Moonshine should be of the best quality - transparent, without yeast flavor. Grind a kilogram of apples in the same way as in previous recipes. We put it in a three-liter jar, sprinkle with ground cinnamon and vanilla (five grams each). Fill with a liter of moonshine, cork and put for ten days in a dark, warm place. After that, we filter the liquid through gauze folded in several layers. Manipulation with apples can be repeated if you have another liter of moonshine. But the secondary tincture of apples on moonshine will be ready in two weeks. We filter the liquid through cotton wool or a paper filter into bottles and cork. In a cool room, such an alcoholic drink can be stored for years.

Homemade Calvados

In fact, this elite French drink is made by sublimation of cider. It is aged for at least two years in oak barrels. After Remarque sang the unique taste and aroma of Calvados in his "Arc de Triomphe", the distillate received the glory of "bohemian" (like absinthe). Our apple tincture at home loses a little to the famous forty-degree drink in the fortress, but is not inferior to it in its unique aroma. Therefore, we took the name in quotation marks.

Apples (two kilograms) are better to take different varieties with a predominance of sweet and juicy. We cut their pulp into small cubes, we fall asleep in a jar. Add two sachets of vanilla, stir. Pour in a liter of vodka. Under a nylon lid, the jar should stand in a dark place for two weeks. Then we filter the liquid through a cloth, squeeze the apples. We cook syrup from one hundred and fifty milliliters of water and two hundred grams of sugar. Bring to a boil and turn off the fire. Slowly pour in the vodka infusion. Add half a glass of alcohol. Cool to room temperature and bottle. Such a tincture of apples on alcohol and vodka is served in cognac glasses as a digestif. Homemade "calvados" goes well with coffee, chocolate and fruit. Drink must be at room temperature.

Smoky flavor

Of course, it's easier to take a couple of handfuls of dried fruits to make such a drink, but it will taste better if you dry the apples yourself. This can be done in an oven or electric grill with hot air. Three or four ripe fruits of the Antonovka variety (together with the peel) are cut into rings and dried in an oven at low temperatures. We put it in a three-liter jar, we fall asleep a tablespoon of sugar. Pour vodka or diluted alcohol. Connoisseurs recommend adding a little concentrated apple juice without pulp. We cork the jar and stand for about two weeks. When the color of the liquid turns amber, it can be filtered and bottled. Dried apple tincture is ready to drink in a month.

Apple liqueur

Five or six large juicy fruits, clean and rub the pulp with large chips. We put it in a jar of a suitable size, but so that it fills no more than three-fourths of the volume of the container. Squeeze lemon juice into it. We make sure that the bones or pulp of citrus do not get into the jar. Fill the jar to the very top with alcohol. It is desirable that the air gap between the liquid and the nylon cover be minimal. Tincture of apples on alcohol should stand in a warm and dark place for about a month. We decant the liquid into a saucepan, squeeze the fruit pulp. Add seven hundred and fifty grams of sugar and put on fire. Sometimes it happens that little liquid comes out - either the apples are not juicy, or the alcohol has weathered a little. Then clarified apple juice can be added to the syrup. We filter the liquor through cotton wool, bottle it, tightly cork it. It should be stored in the refrigerator door or cellar for no more than six months.

Apple-honey tincture

The drink is both strong and sweet. We cut one and a half kilograms of apples into thin slices, removing the core and seeds, but leaving the peel. We put it in a three-liter jar, pour one and a half liters of alcohol, diluted to the desired strength with chilled boiled water. Close container tightly. We insist about ten days. After that, we filter the liquid through cheesecloth. Pour one and a half liters of water into a separate saucepan. We heat and dissolve in it a glass of granulated sugar and two or three tablespoons of honey. Mix both liquids. Alcohol tincture from apples using these sweeteners(sugar and honey) can be strong and not very strong, similar to liquor or balm. Well, later we must strain the liquid through a homemade filter from a piece of cotton, screw the caps on the bottles and send them to a cool dark place.

Adam's apple tincture

Maclura tree belongs to the genus Mulberry. It comes from North America, but it has perfectly taken root in the subtropical zone of Europe. It is found in Ukraine (especially in the south of the country) and in Russia (North Caucasus). Maklura has long been valued for its durable and resilient wood from which bows were made. And the fruits of the tree have a lot of healing properties. In the people, these green hard balls are called Adam's apples, although they have nothing to do with the juicy and tasty maclura fruit. Its fruit is absolutely inedible and even poisonous. But in pharmacology, maclura is used very widely. Antibiotics and various ointments are produced from it.

The basis for medicines is Adam's apple tincture. The preparation of this healing balm is possible at home. Here is the easiest recipe. We cut the maclura fruit into pieces, put it in a jar, compacting the layers. Fill with diluted fifty percent alcohol in a ratio of one to one. The container for the tincture must be selected so that the air gap between the liquid level and the lid is as small as possible. It is necessary to simmer alcohol balm for at least two months, and preferably more. A sign that the tincture has reached the desired condition will be its color - strong tea.

Ointment and drink

Three or four maclura fruits are crushed in a blender, squeezed out the juice. Mix it with vodka. We observe the proportions: we take five alcohol for one part of the juice. After a few days, the cloudy liquid will separate in two. At the bottom there will be a thick milky juice, and on top there will be a clear alcohol solution. We separate both fractions into separate containers and store in a refrigerator or a cool place. On the basis of milky juice, ointments can be made. If you mix it with vegetable oil (in a ratio of one to two), then the resulting liquid can be used to treat eczema, dermatitis, and instill it into the ears with otitis media. And alcohol tincture from Adam's apples is used orally for migraine, hypertension and even cancer. Start taking it with one drop three times a day, gradually increasing the dose to a coffee spoon.