Tinctures and liqueurs are amazing drinks. In Russian literature, mentions of them are often found; your great-grandmothers and great-grandfathers also treated themselves to them. Making a miracle drink at home is easy. The main components of this drink are fruits and berries, as well as honey and medicinal plants. They insist on alcohol or cognac, rum, vodka, gin.
How to make liqueurs
Pouring is a light aperitif containing no more than 20% alcohol. Ingredients:
- natural juice of fruits and berries;
- alcohol;
- sugar;
- lemon acid.
The process of making the liqueur is very simple - squeeze juice from fruits and berries, dilute it with alcohol, add sugar, acid and keep warm from 1 to 6 months. It turns out a surprisingly tasty drink, if the fruits and berries are fully ripe, without rot and wormholes.
Technologies, worked out for centuries, make it possible to obtain a low-alcohol, pleasant-tasting, ladies' drink. Sugar is often replaced with honey as a sweetener. There are a great many ways to get the most delicious liqueurs, many housewives keep family branded grandmother's recipes. Perhaps the most famous liqueur is cherry. The recipes for making "cherry" are different, each housewife has her own secrets. Such a liqueur is prepared in several stages, kept for at least a month, the result is a delicious, aromatic aperitif.
An exclusive drink is made from viburnum berries, rowan berries (the famous "brandy"), slightly stuck in the frost. The filling is infused at room temperature for 2-3 months. Light sweet aperitifs are served with pastries and desserts. They are distinguished from tinctures by a small percentage of alcohol and a lot of sugar, up to 30-40%.
Tinctures are a healthy drink
When making tinctures, plants with medicinal properties are taken as raw materials:
- herbs;
- roots;
- flowers;
- fruits (for example, rose hips or hawthorns).
Their strength is much higher than that of liqueurs, they are valued for their healing qualities, for this reason, tinctures are taken as a medicine, in small doses, much smaller than liqueurs. Tinctures on poisonous medicinal herbs are drunk a few drops at a time.
The herbal drink can be useful for many ailments, such as allergies, diseases of the stomach and intestinal tract, colds, and various abscesses. For example, it is advisable to take tinctures on mint and wormwood before meals, they increase the appetite. Toning drinks can be added to morning tea, coffee. Tinctures strengthen the body, increase immunity, and are an excellent preventive measure against many ailments.
If you want to get a medicinal tincture, follow the technology strictly so that the drink does not lose its unique properties. There are several types of tinctures:
- bitter - roots and herbs serve as raw materials, they contain a small amount of sugar, no more than 2%, sometimes sugar is replaced with an infusion of licorice root;
−semi-sweet drinks - contain alcohol up to 30-40% and sugar up to 3-5%, roots, seeds, fruits are taken to make semisweet tinctures;
−sweet - they contain 20-30% sugar.
Tinctures, unlike liqueurs, insist for a short time, after 10 days the tincture is ready for use. Sweet liqueurs, in which the emphasis is on flavor nuances, can be served as light alcoholic drinks.
