I have become quite partial to drinking Campari and soda since being introduced to it by my godmother when I visited her in the UK. During lockdown it became very difficult to obtain in New Zealand so I decided that I'd have to have a go at making it myself - this is my homemade Campari recipe. Campari is a dark red Italian alcoholic liqueur, used as an apéritif or as a bitters (digestif). It was invented in 1860 by Gaspare Campari. The recipe contains more than 60 natural ingredients … [Read more...]
Homemade Kombucha Recipe
Fermented foods and beverages are becoming increasingly popular, adding variety, new flavours and interesting textures to our diets. However for many people it is the potential health benefits that are the main reason for consuming them. My sister-in-law Bronnie gave me a kombucha scoby so that I could try making homemade kombucha. Kombucha is full of living organisms to help feed and develop healthy gut bacteria, helping to improve digestion and immunity, and eases the symptoms of … [Read more...]
Two Homemade Tonic Water Syrup Recipes
With all this experimenting with making gin, I thought it would be fun to see if I could make tonic water to go with it, particularly as tonic water has botanical ingredients as well. Here are my learnings around making homemade tonic water syrup. The main ingredient of tonic water is quinine. Quinine is extracted from the bark of cinchona trees, which was used as a medicine by Quechuan tribes in the South American Andes to treat shivering and fevers. They mixed the bitter powder with … [Read more...]
Simple Homemade Infused Gin Recipe
I appear to be a bit gin-obsessed at the moment (see my earlier posts on Making Gin at Home, Learning about Distilling Workshop, Gin Immersion Workshop and lots of different infused gin recipes) but it seems that I'm not the only one! Everyone I speak to at the moment is making gin, has a still, is thinking of getting a still, or just enjoys trying different gins. One of my colleagues, Barry, used to work for a company that sold distilling equipment and now has his own at home. We have a 'gin … [Read more...]
Gin Immersion Workshop
As well as the Distillation Workshop that I attended recently, I also attended a Gin Immersion workshop that was a really good follow on course for me but could be attended as a stand alone course. We learnt all about key aspects of gin making, including understanding the key botanicals that can be used, how to go about creating a blend of the botanicals, and the base alcohol or neutral spirit to use as the starting material. In NZ to be called a gin it must contain at least 37% alcohol by … [Read more...]
Lemon Lime & Bitters Cordial Recipe
My lemon and lime trees produce copious amounts of fruit so I am always looking for different ways to use them. I've previously made various combinations of lemon, lime or lemon and lime cordials and even lemon barley water cordial. This time I decided to make a lemon, lime & bitters cordial recipe. 2 cups fresh lemon juice 1 cup fresh lime juice 3 slices lemon rind 3 slices lime rind 2 cups white sugar 1 tbsp Angostura bitters fresh mint, finely chopped … [Read more...]
Yellow Cherry Guava Gin Recipe
Autumn is a bountiful time for harvesting fruit and guavas are a seasonal favourite. I have been growing red cherry guavas for years and have previously shared recipes for cherry guava jelly and cherry guava cordial that look fabulous made with red cherry guavas. More recently I planted a yellow cherry guava as well and have just added the few yellow fruit to the red ones. Now that I am getting a reasonable harvest of yellow cherry guavas I thought it was about time to make something different … [Read more...]
Home-made Blackberry Gin Recipe
This year my thornless blackberry has provided me with more blackberries than I can every remember having so I've definitely been seeking new recipes to try. This blackberry gin recipe isn't exactly new as I've made the same recipe with raspberries and blueberries previously but I had never made a blackberry gin. I made a double recipe that makes about 1500ml of blackberry gin (and didn't waste the berries at the end as I used them to make blackberry jam). You can use any gin for the … [Read more...]
Homemade Lemon Gin Recipe
Easy to make home-made lemon gin using a gin botanicals kit and homegrown lemons. I had bought some Gin Kit Botanicals from Mad Millie following my last efforts making Home-made Gin. These come with 3 different flavours: Traditional London Dry Gin botanical blend Bay Leaf botanical blend Mint botanical blend I made up the Traditional London Dry Blend for this recipe: juniper berries, coriander seeds, citrus peels (lemon, orange), liquorice root Put 1l vodka in a jar, add … [Read more...]
Apple Ginger Beer Recipe
This alcoholic Apple Ginger Beer Recipe comes from Mad Millie. I've previously made Ginger Beer from their kit but was excited to try this new recipe that just required ginger beer yeast and ingredients you might have in your garden or can buy from the supermarket (sugar, ginger, lemon and apple juice). It is a very refreshing drink with the apple juice giving it an unexpected twist. It can be made with dried or fresh ginger, whatever you have to hand. I made it exactly to the recipe this time … [Read more...]
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