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.