Home-made Liquers

cannyfradock

I have a few good recipes from living in France for home-made liqueurs, but the French have an advantage over us as they can convert any left over wine to Eau-de-vie (distilled wine). They use things like seeping half-ripe walnuts or fresh bay leaves or even fresh sprigs of Blackthorn into a container of ...ratio....5 litres wine to 1 litre Eau-de vie...and sugar, to produce the best Liqueurs that I have ever consumed......and I consume a lot.

Have the good people of the Emerald isle an equally good grog to compete with those peasants across the channel......( I use the word Peasant in the most respective form)

Terry

the beer revolu

Sloe gin would be the closest which I assume comes from England originally.

I believe rhubarb vodka is good too.

I plan to make some green walnut wine this year my French friend's grandfather use to make it but he's dead years now so I've not had it in about 10 years but thanks to the power of the internet - recipes are available!!

rubadub

cannyfradock wrote: »

but the French have an advantage over us as they can convert any left over wine to Eau-de-vie (distilled wine).

Are you inferring distillation is legal in France without a licence? because AFAIK its illegal there too

en français

La législation française est très stricte, il est interdit de posséder (ou même d'acheter, d'importer, de vendre, de déplacer) un alambic (ou partie d'alambic), à moins d'avoir obtenu une autorisation (article 306 du code général des impôts). Le même article préventivement refuse l'autorisation au non-professionel.
in english

The french legislation is very strict, it is prohibited to own (or even to buy, to import, to sell, to move) a still (or part of a still), unless you have obtained an authorisation (article 306 of the code général des impôts). The same article preventively refuse the authorisation to anyone but a professional.

It can be done on a small scale in Italy.

the beer revolu

rubadub wrote: »

Are you inferring distillation is legal in France without a licence? because AFAIK its illegal there too



It can be done on a small scale in Italy.

As far as I know in parts of France there are still licences for small scale local distilling but I think the licences are being extinguished as the holders die.
Not sure where I got that from, though.

cannyfradock

Distilling in France

I lived and worked in France for about 10 years...1986 to 1996 (ish). I worked within the system both as an employee and as a self employed market trader. For 4 of these years I lived in a small village called Bazoges en Pareds (about 100 houses) ...in the Vendee.

Once a year for 2 weeks a distiller would set up his old corrugated distillery shed on wheels on a point in between 4 or 5 small villages.

Everyone apart from me had a vineyard producing about 1200 litres of wine each year. This wine was not contaminated by chemicals. Only raw products were used with the help of a little sugar. It was only good for 1 year so when the distiller arrived all the local "Paysan" would convert the rest of last years wine into Eau-de-Vie before it became spoiled. I think that for every 5 litres of wine the Paysan would recieve 1 litre of Eau-de-Vie.

The law, at the time that I was in France, was that an established distillery (Ambulant.....street trader) could only continue to legally continue giving this service if it was passed down from Father to Son.....The French are sticklers for tradition and although this was many years ago I believe this law would still continue.

The distilled wine used to come out at about 70/80% proof and there was always an abundance of Eau-de-Vie available from the neighbours.

As the French are very frugal in their approach to home economics, the EDV was used for preserving fruit and making the best ever concoction of aperitifs, digestifs, and fortified wines of all sorts.

Terry