I usu­ally make a blue­berry infused spirit, but it seemed time to expand my blue­berry hori­zons by mak­ing a liqueur. I’m glad I did. It wasn’t hard at all and only took a lit­tle patience. A lot of the blue­berry liqueur recipes I’ve seen use lemon zest and clove. I chose to bypass those ingre­di­ents. I wanted to iso­late the blue­berry fla­vor for my cock­tails and didn’t want to be mar­ried to the clove and cit­rus tones. You may want to give them a whirl though. I haven’t had a chance to try out other berries yet. I’m sure they’d work too. If any­one has any suc­cess sto­ries with alter­nate berries please let me know.

I know you aren’t going to believe me when I say this, but it’s true. This recipe works best with frozen blue­ber­ries. The organic break­down of frozen fruit makes the fla­vors pop. When frozen the water crys­tal­liza­tion dis­in­te­grates the plant cells on micro­scopic cel­lu­lar level. You’re just going to have to trust me on this one.

When it’s all said and done, this recipe will yield two 50 proof, 750 ml bot­tles of blue­berry liqueur that are very ver­sa­tile. You can use it in cock­tails, driz­zle it over your favorite desserts (blue­berry crum­ble, vanilla ice cream with fresh berries, etc), add depth to sauces and mari­nades, or just plain sip it after a meal.

Recipe

• 24 oz frozen blueberries
• 1 bot­tle (750 ml) of 100 proof vodka
• 750 ml of water
• 5 cups sugar to taste

1. Lightly cook the blue­ber­ries to release their nat­ural sugars.
2. Add the blue­ber­ries and vodka to a 2 quart, wide­mouth can­ning jar and wait 1–2 months. I thought it was accept­able at 1 month, but was bet­ter at two. It’s up to you how patient you can be.
3. Strain the blue­ber­ries from the vodka.
4. Dis­solve the 5 cups of sugar in the 750 ml of water and then incor­po­rate it with the vodka. Adjust your sugar lev­els to taste.
5. Bot­tle your blue­berry liqueur. It should keep for a cou­ple years due to the alco­hol. Added bonus, it will get bet­ter over the first cou­ple months.

Blue­berry Hill

Try your new blue­berry liqueur in an alter­ation of my Blue­berry Hill cock­tail recipe.

• 1 1/2 oz gin
• 1/2 blue­berry liqueur
• 3/4 oz Dimmi Liquore di Milano
• 1/4 oz fresh lemon juice
• 2 dashes of Post Pro­hi­bi­tion Orange Bitters
• 1 egg white

Add all ingre­di­ents in a cock­tail shaker. Dry shake or use a hand­held frother to incor­po­rate the egg white. Add ice and shake. Strain into a chilled cock­tail glass. Gar­nish with fresh blue­ber­ries or rim your glass or top with a sugar and dehy­drated blue­berry power combination.