StillSmart

A few folk may recollect that I had a surplus of Strawberries in the summer and froze them.
Running out of freezer space last weekend, I took about 3Kg, tipped them into a wide mouthed jar with 4 litres of 45% neutral.
After 4 days, a gorgeous red Strawberry scented liquid that tasted awful...
Add a little bit of sugar and my friends are calling this the drink of the year..
Win,win.

Robert.

I re-distilled and carbon filtered my version last week.

Ha ha! Got a DJ of Raspberry vodka.........

I know it'll need sweetening after I've strained out the fruit, but at least it's a very festive colour.........

Yes, it is a very festive colour. I prefer raspberry myself. And if you distill it again to make a aqua vitae, it has a curiously prickly effect on the throat. Or mine did.

I did damson and blackberry gin this year - both gorgeous

Cheers

Hampk

Forgive me guys, i'm still playing catch-up, just noticed this thread,

Done the strawbs as Robert mentioned, bleddy awfull, but sweetened not
so bad, ok for a summer punch for the bbq. I agree with chill, rasps
make for a better drink. I buy them whan there cheap and freeze down
and add to 1ltr 94% nuetral, it really sucks the colour and flavour
out of them. Dilute to 40% and throw it in the airstill. raspberry
aqua-vitae. Or raspie vodka as my sister calls it, does have a tingle.
she loves it so i make a point of making a couple of bottles to take
back up to Scotland every year for her.

cheers B_D

Raspie Vodka, what a drink name!

Robert.

May well be the variety.
We are still picking heaps of sweet fresh strawberries every day.
I macerated a dozen or so, sliced, in 4 litres of 40% vodka (TFFV of course).
After a week, the berries were ghostly white and the vodka had taken on a great colour and more importantly - flavour. I enjoy it on ice neat and the Gardener really enjoys it with tonic. She tried with lemonade but too sweet. All with no sugar added.

Sorry My friend, you do not escape easily from such a post.

1.Where do you reside, that you are picking Strawberries at this time?
2.Only a dozen juicy berries to 4 litres? Sounds unreal,I can be cautious, never tight, but this is breaking new ground
3."The Gardener" ,is that an alias, 'cos you is working for MI some number, or is that your other half?

Robert.

Obviously lives in a greenhouse

I put my hand up I am a bit north of Auckland NZ Nice subtropical environment.
The Gardener is someone I know (and I have been sleeping with for over 40 years)

She has a very green thumb and between us we have a prolific garden
work it out for yourselves

http://www.nzhomedistiller.org.nz/forum ... f=27&t=587

Well I guess that explains the fresh strawberries.......

Thing is, to me something is being missed/overlooked here.

It's about how flavour actually works, it's about what we take as "every day", but turns out that very thing can be hard to work with in a different format.

Sure, many of us enjoy the taste of such fruits in the original form, but do something to change that form and the point of original enjoyment also changes. To recover that original form will fail but to recover part of it can sometimes be achieved.

Strawberries are notoriously difficult. Ferment the sugars and they're often not nice. Replace some of the sugars at that point, you still have some of the change but some is recovered.

The same with raspberries - except the first changed form i.e. fermented, is very different - strawberry wine as dry is, well, sort of flat and uninspiring, raspberry wine as dry is often very aromatic, but sharp/acidic. So the recovery is the sugars which makes both retain the difference but restores some of the original.

I'm hoping you follow the drift, that it explains some of the above but also depends on us and how we perceive flavour/taste etc......

It's relative to the individual (as well as our different abilities to convey what we are tasting/perceiving).......