Green Walnut Liqueur

Home-made liqueurs are fun to make!

They can be cheaper to make than the commercial varieties, depending on your choice of base spirit, and there is an enormous range of fruits and nuts to choose from. The added bonus is that you can adjust the sugar content to suit your personal taste. Commercially produced beverages are manufactured for a mass market, so if your own taste is for something less sweet, well as far as they are concerned that’s tough.

You can experiment with additional herbs and spices as well, to create your own 'signature' liqueur .

The French have a sweet tooth, and sweetish fortified wines and liqueurs are traditionally served as ‘aperos’ to visiting friends and neighbours. And in the more rural areas homemade liqueurs are still popular, and often, it seems produced on an industrial scale!

At this time of year the fruit season is just beginning to crank up. Apricots are coming into their peak time, the cherries are almost over, but the walnuts are swelling on the branch, and now is the perfect time to make walnut liqueur.

They mustn’t be too big. By the end of June the shells will be set and this recipe calls for them to be still bright green and easily crushed. So here, in SW France there’s no time to be lost.

Equipment:

There’s no need for expensive equipment or ingredients (except for the alcohol). Here's what you will need, however:

• A few Kilner- type jars,
• some paper coffee filters, or a muslin jelly bag if you have one,
• some empty wine bottles.

For the liqueuer you will need:

• 575 ml/ 1pint 40% fruit alcohol. (vodka can be substituted without any noticeable loss of flavour.)
• 1 clove and 1 small piece of cinnamon…..don’t overdo the spices as even these amounts add quite a lot of flavour.
• A vanilla pod
• 125g/ 4oz sugar
• 100ml/ 3 fl ozs water.

Before starting to process the walnuts it’s advisable to use rubber gloves unless you don’t mind your hands being an unusually dark brown!

Method:

• Lay the nuts on a non-porous surface (they WILL stain your work-top given the chance).
• Crush with a mallet into small pieces, and tip into a large, sterilised kilner, or other suitable screw top jar. Add the alcohol, the spices and the vanilla pod.
• Close the jar tightly and leave on a sunny window sill for at least two weeks, but anything up to 6 or 8 weeks is preferable…..the longer the better. Try to remember to shake the jar every few days.
• When your patience runs out, or the sun disappears, strain the liquid (which probably resembles sump oil in colour by now!) into a clean jug using a funnel and a filter.
• Dissolve the sugar and water over a gentle heat, making sure there are no sugar crystals left in the bottom of the saucepan and leave to cool.
• When it has cooled add to the strained walnut liquid.
• Pour carefully into sterilised bottle, and cork tightly. Store until Christmas, or even better the Christmas after that!

The finished liqueur has a herbal overtone with just a hint of clove and cinnamon. The addition of a vanilla pod is not strictly traditional in this recipe but it imparts a mellow smoothness to the drink. Its dark green appearance is not dissimilar to a Chartreuse and is a deliciously warming companion on a cold winter evening.

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