Blackberries and I have a love hate relationship. Once upon a time when I got to pick them just for myself I loved those sweet little flavour bombs. Then I spent a few seasons picking them with my family because we needed the money - the best for sale in organic grocers and the worst for use in jams. Blackberries morning noon and night. Thorns, scratches, snakes galore. Consequently blackberries are not something I'm hugely wedded to. But blackberry liqueur? Bring it.
Much to my chagrin my dad started making this stuff after I'd fled the nest. In hindsight I should be more pleased about that because it might have made me a raging alcoholic if I'd had greater access to it in my formative years. Believe me, this stuff is worth killing for. Dad used to make it for us but he also sold it to some of the finer restaurants in Canberra where it would go with dessert for $10-15 a glass. A much better use of the cast-offs than jam in my opinion. I've been raving about this stuff for years and promising to make some for Charles ever since we first met. But I've never, ever made good mainly because I like to delude myself every season until, aw shucks, the season's over and I don't have to go blackberry picking. What a shame.
This year, the big man is recovering from surgery in hospital. And not only is there the issue of my unfulfilled promise, but blackberries are one of his favourite fruits and there are thickets of these things between where we live and the hospital. I was out of excuses. So I waited until dusk*, ponied up and went picking the same day that he had his second lot of surgery. Beat the hell out of sitting around the hospital waiting and I thought it would be nice to have something sweet and light to eat after he came out. Not to mention the celebratory drinks once he gets home. What can I say? That's just the sort of wife I am. ;-)
30 seconds into picking these things I remembered why they are my most hated of all harvests. First of all, managing brambles is like trying to stuff a defiant octopus into a string bag half its size. You think you're standing on it, you're not and suddenly you're wearing it. You are standing on it, but it has smaller off-shoots that are up your jeans leg. And then there's the business of just how tenacious they can be once their hooks are into you and how they have a tendency to leave the thorn behind in your skin when you manage to rip the bloody thing off. Finally they have a tendency to spring back up behind you as you wade into the thicket and when you turn to leave you suddenly remember all about Brer Rabbit. Yup, blackberry brambles are right up there on my list of hates and this time was no exception. Three days later and I'm still pulling the thorns out of my hands, arms and legs.
The other reason blackberry picking sucks? Snakes. My dad used to take a pair of secateurs and a machete on our jaunts. The machete was not for the blackberries** - that was the last ditch snake defence system. I don't really own a machete any more but believe me the very next Bunnings gift card I get is committed to getting one. So I didn't pack the whacker but I did wear my long, baggy jeans (which snakes have trouble piercing but blackberry brambles seem to manage just fine) and really stupid shoes. I had not thought I would need to go so deeply into the field but naturally that's where the blackberries were at their most abundant and of course I was wearing thin-soled canvas shoes instead of steel-capped Redbacks. Rookie mistake.
Here's a tip for wading through long grass around blackberry thickets. Sticks are round and hard. Snakes are round and hard but kinda squishy too. They also move when you tread on them. Which I did only five minutes into the whole caper. The grass was so thick I couldn't actually get my feet down to dirt and this probably saved me because the wretched thing couldn't rear up through the thick tangle of grass to nail me. I trod, it moved, I looked down and saw the familiar dry scales through the tangle of grass on a body as thick as my wrist. I don't even remember feeling fear, I just swore like a trooper and leapt clear. It didn't deter me - it just made me furious and determined to get my little black sugar bombs.
Anyway, I was only there for about half an hour and I scored enough blackberries for my man and for making liqueur. Winning!
There are many pages on the interwebs telling you how to make blackberry liqueur by steeping and fermenting the berries in sugar syrup over a matter of weeks followed by straining and blending with your fortifiers. Here's how to do it the quick, I-want-to-drink-it-tomorrow way;
First of all you will need bottles to put your liqueur into. Screw top or cork, the choice is yours. I personally save up the big man's empty muscat bottles (usually a 500ml size) and I use them. Go for smaller bottles rather than bigger ones and make sure you wash and dry them (I recommend using very hot water and no detergent. There's also no need to sterilise, it's fire water after all). Secondly you'll need a suitable cloth to strain your syrup. I elected to not go with my Clog Wog father's preferred method - a threadbare T-shirt that he's willing to part with. Instead I used one square metre of plain muslin which costs about $3 a metre from the fabric store.
Finally you need your blackberries and white sugar (and alcohol to fortify your syrup, but more on that shortly). You can buy these fresh or frozen at the supermarket but I guarantee they will not taste anywhere near as good as wild, fresh-picked. So pony up, get a machete and some secateurs and go get 'em. Then pick through your yield and toss anything that's not blackberry. Weigh whatever's left. In my case I got roughly 1.3 kilos.
Toss it into a saucepan and add roughly the same amount in sugar, to the nearest cup. One cup of sugar weighs 250g. So in my case I added five cups of sugar. Now add approximately half a cup of water for every two cups of sugar you used. Round down, not up. So here's what I started with;
1.3 kilos blackberries
5 Cups white sugar
1.5 cups of water
Stir it all together and pop it on the stove to come to the boil.
As the blackberry mix heats up, use a wooden spoon to crush the berries against the side of the saucepan. In a separate pot heat a couple of litres of water until it boils. When the water boils, pop the muslin in and boil it for a couple of minutes. Then switch it off. Keep stirring your blackberries until they've become quite liquid and then simmer down until the mix becomes thick.
Now it's time to strain your liquid. Lift the muslin out of the water with some tongs, give it a squeeze to get rid of the excess water, empty the water out of the saucepan and then stretch the cloth across the top (secure the muslin so it doesn't fall into the pot. Get someone to hold it for you, tie it to the handles, use clothes line pegs around the rim or put a colander over the top of the saucepan and put the muslin in that. Whatever works peeps.) Tip the blackberry mix into the muslin.
I like to tie my muslin into a knot and hang it up over the saucepan for a couple of hours, but not overnight because sometimes the syrup will set into a jelly if it gets cool enough. Do not be tempted to squeeze the bag to force the syrup out and make it all go faster as you'll get a very cloudy syrup and, consequently, liqueur, if you do.
After a couple of hours your syrup should be slightly warm but not set. It will have the consistency and colour of the fake blood they used to use on Buffy. Don't worry it's much tastier. Go on. Try it. There are many ways to use this syrup in its current form. Over ice-cream, to make a jus for steak... try it and consider setting some aside for other culinary endeavours***.
Anyways, now it's time to blend it. Here's where you get to play Master Mixer. I can't remember the way Dad used to make this and neither can he. We're clear on the fact that you can use either vodka or a combination of vodka and brandy, but neither of us can remember the ratios. I seem to remember a mix of vodka and brandy in a 1:1 ratio was our preferred blend but when it comes to the alcohol to syrup ratio I have not a clue. So I bought both and decided to conduct a bit of an experiment.
A word on alcohol selection. Since the blackberry syrup will be the dominant flavour, it is not necessary to buy top-shelf fortifiers. But neither do you want to buy the bottle with the label in Russian that you can't read which happens to only cost half what the other vodkas seem to cost. Battery acid is battery acid and blackberry syrup or no it will burn a hole through your tongue and then your stomach. Pick something decent, most especially when it comes to the brandy. And for God's sake use a funnel when filling the bottles.
My original ingredients made enough syrup to fill three 500ml and one 700ml bottle. My mixes went like this;
1st 500ml Bottle;
250ml vodka
250ml syrup
2nd and 3rd 500ml Bottle;
125ml Vodka
125ml Brandy
250ml Syrup
700ml Bottle;
125ml Vodka
125ml Brandy
450ml Syrup
My verdict when tasting them today is that the 700ml bottle is the unsurprisingly clear winner - no doubt due to the higher syrup ratio. But honestly? They are all crazy good. The pure vodka mix was a little thin for me but probably perfect for cocktails. The brandy/vodka combination gave a much headier liqueur with a stronger taste and the 700ml bottle with the 2:1 syrup to alcohol ratio was almost a syrup you could pour on ice-cream and eat.
The flavours may change a little over the first three to four weeks after bottling, but the mix should be pretty stable after that. I will write an initial follow-up once my big man has had a taste to deliver his verdict and I'll write a second follow-up a few weeks from now to let you know whether they changed much and how. But that, in a nutshell, is how to make blackberry liqueur. Happy harvesting!
* Less snakes and preservation of the crazy Celtic skin.
** Blackberry brambles rarely sever when whacked with a machete. They simply spring down and then slap you back.
*** Chicken breast stuffed with brie and flaked almonds, wrapped in prosciutto and baked with this drizzled over the top before you serve. Oh my GOD.
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