Elderberry Liqueur

This is a continuation from my first instructable about the Elderflower Liqueur. Since the flower are now gone and the Elder tree  is carrying berries instead it's perfect for making a new flavour of the season. Also something my grandmother told me about.

This recipe is as simple as the first one, just a bit more tedious at one part.


***DISCLAIMER***
Remember that this recipe contains alcohol and shouldn't be drank by under-age kids and before driving. DON*T DRINK AND DRIVE!!!

We're going to need the following:

1 l of Elderberries
4 dl of Vodka
3 dl of light or dark syrup

So time to go out and pick the berries. We're gonna need enough of these so that in the end we have 1 litre of berries. I can't give you an estimate of how many bunches of berries you have to cut down. For me I needed 15-20 at least since they all varied in sizes and berry-amount.

Now to the tedious part:
We don't want the stem together the berries and I really don't want any lady bugs or beetles in my liqueur either, so sit down at the table, turn on the TV/laptop/computer/music, put on something to listen to and start picking the berries from the stem. I did some extra sorting and removed the pink/light purple ones (since they've not matured enough at this point) and the old ones (since they're all dried out and wrinkly).

Ok. The stems are gone and it's time to prep the berries for the vodka.

Place them in a bowl and use a potato masher, or similar, to slightly mash the berries, releasing the juice.


***I just happened to be watching Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince at the time and just arrived at the part where Harry finds the Prince's potions book and follows his advice, earning him the Felix Felicis.***

Pour the berries and juice into a nice glass jar with a proper lid since the berries are going to be stored for a month before adding the last ingredient.
But in the mean time we add the Vodka!!

4 dl of vodka for every litre of berries. In this batch I have 1½ l of berries so I'm using 6 dl of vodka.

Keep the glass jar somewhere light and warm for at least a month. Grandma told me to keep it in the sun too. Can't do that in my student room so it's out on the bookshelf instead, at least it's light and warm here.

According to my grandma I'm suppose to have 3 dl of light or dark syrup in the liqueur. I hope this won' make this liqueur as thick as the Elderflower at first before I diluted it.

So, as not to do the same mistake as with the Elderflowers, I made a bigger batch so I can dilute to liqueur if need be and still keep the taste (the Elderflower got a bit of a stronger vodka to it)

Now that the month is up it's time to remove the berry meat and seeds  and pour it all into bottles.

Serve chilled to desserts, preferably vanilla ice cream.