Raisin and Sultana Brandy
My mum made raisin brandy last year as a bit of an experiment. Someone had suggested she make blackberry brandy, but she still had some brandy left over when she’d run out of blackberries. The raisins were just sat there in the cupboard so she mixed them up. Now it turns out that raisin brandy is considerably nicer than blackberry brandy.
Continuing the research (you never know what you might turn up) I’m making raisin and sultana brandy. I’ve added about 500g of raisins and about 500g of sultanas to 1.5l of cheap brandy. I’ve sweetened this mixture so far with about 200g of light brown sugar. I thought this would add some extra depth. Now raisins in particular are rather sweet and strong flavoured - and their flavour starts to leach into the brandy very quickly - you can see the colour change in a few hours. As a mixture this one doesn’t need sweetening as much as many others do.
You could probably make this one within a month or so, but I’m going to give it two. It would probably be even better made in January, bottled in April and left to mature until Christmas. The sultanas have a much more subtle flavour - I doubt if they’d work very well on their own - hence I’ve mixed them with raisins. As the fruit is dry to begin with I’d also expect this liqueur to be rather potent - not far from the original alcohol content of the brandy as there is no juice in the fruit to water it down.
I’ll keep giving the mixture a good shake a couple of times a week and then taste test it every two (this is the reason why liqueur making is so much fun!). A teaspoon or two will allow me to judge if the mix needs more sugar, or if it’s ready to be separated and bottled. At the end I’ll also be left with a large amount of plump, alcoholic fruit. I expect they’ll taste rather good with some custard.
Writing this has also given me another idea - raisin rum. Raisins and dark rum - it’s brilliant in ice cream - how good’s it gonna be as a liqueur?
November 11th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
It’s nearly a month since I wrote this post. The Raisin and Sultana Brandy has evolved since then. I’ve split the mixture over 3 passata jars - there were too many raisins and sultanas to fit so I’ve set the extra fruit aside in a jar by themselves topped up with a bit of the brandy mixture to keep them moist. They’ll be good for cooking and they are rather nice just for eating too.
I’ve also added 8 cloves each to the 3 jars. The mixtures seemed to need a bit of spice to round them out a little. They need a few weeks longer yet though before I bottle them.
I’m also thinking that brown sugar may be a mistake in liqueur making - I think it turns the mixture a bit cloudy - it may taste nice, but it looks less appealing.
November 11th, 2007 at 11:04 pm
I haven’t tried the Raisin Rum idea yet. We’ll see how the Brandy turns out first.