Mandarin Orange Digestif Recipe
By
CHOW Food Team
Difficulty: Easy |
Total Time:
10 mins, plus steeping time
|
Active Time:
|
Makes:
3 1/3 cups
With its sweet mandarin flavor and touch of acidity, this digestif will have you wishing the meal could end faster.
What to buy: We chose Everclear 151 grain alcohol to use in our digestifs; it picks up the flavoring elements much faster than vodka.
This recipe was featured as part of our Make Your Own Digestifs project, as well as our DIY Holiday Gifts Advent Calendar.
INGREDIENTS
- 5 medium mandarin oranges
- 2 cups grain alcohol, such as Everclear 151
- 1 1/2 cups Rich Simple Syrup
INSTRUCTIONS
- Using a vegetable peeler, remove mandarin peel in wide strips, making sure to avoid the white pith.
- Place peels in a 1-quart glass jar with a tightfitting lid, add alcohol, cover, and let steep, at room temperature, undisturbed, for 6 days.
- After 6 days, remove peels and add rich simple syrup. Stir to combine. Store in the freezer.
@souschef: It's for the same reason we store our good vodka in the freezer. It just tastes so much better served straight from the freezer. You could even freeze the bottle into a block of ice. (Easy way, clean a half-gallon milk carton, put bottle in carton, fill with cold water, put in freezer. You might have to weight the bottle down until it freezes, and also prop it up to stand straight. The...+READ
@souschef: It's for the same reason we store our good vodka in the freezer. It just tastes so much better served straight from the freezer. You could even freeze the bottle into a block of ice. (Easy way, clean a half-gallon milk carton, put bottle in carton, fill with cold water, put in freezer. You might have to weight the bottle down until it freezes, and also prop it up to stand straight. The water should reach right below the bottle neck. About a half-hour before serving, remove from freezer, then when it starts to melt, peel off the milk carton. Put frozen bottle into wine cooler to serve. Nice. You can also cut down a plastic two-litre soda bottle instead of the milk carton for a nicer shape. Then, when ready to serve, simply stand the bottle in hot water for a few minutes until the liquor bottle and ice lifts out of the plastic bottle.-COLLAPSE
Fresh fruit/herb flavors are ephemeral. Keeping your decoction cold will preserve it. Oh, and I prefer to drink them cold, too.
Why do you have to store it in the freezer?