I’ve got a regular distillery rocking here at the house. Aside from a great deal of pie, I’ve turned a lot of my fresh summer fruit into yummy booze (see the posts on my cherry adventures).

So after I made some blackberry vanilla jam I still had a decent amount of blackberries left from my picking day with H. So I used them up in a batch of blackberry liqueur, from another Homebrew Underground recipe. This doesn’t need to macerate and steep for quite as long as the cherry cordials, but I’m still letting it sit out for a good long time to soak up that blackberry flavor. I even made a vat of the standard sugar syrup recipe from the blog.

I’m only on Step One now, so I’ll update when I get further along in the process.

Step One Ingredients:

2 cups fresh or frozen blackberries (Important: If frozen berries are used, measure them while still frozen, because in a thawed state, they will shrink to about half the volume)
1 cup sugar
1 cup 80-proof vodka
1 cup brandy
1 cup standard sugar syrup
1 tsp lemon zest (see lemon zester)
1 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice

Step One Directions:

Put berries and sugar in 2 Qt. Mason jar, then crush berries with a wooden spoon, then let the mixture stand to allow juice to develop.

After one hour add the vodka and brandy, then shake the mixture thoroughly until all the sugar is dissolved.

Add the sugar syrup, then add the lemon juice and lemon zest.
Macerate at room temperature for 2 weeks.

Step Two Ingredients:

100-proof vodka

Step Two Directions:

Strain and filter.
Blend with 100 proof vodka to taste – About 8 parts strained and filtered liqueur to 1 part 100 proof vodka.