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What dried fruits to add to the dry stew. Moonshine flavoring recipes

It is practically impossible to get it at home. The distillation product requires cleaning regardless of the mash recipe. The unpleasant smell and taste of moonshine is given by chemical compounds formed during the ferrying process.... The mechanism for softening and purifying moonshine is aimed at removing fusel oils and impurities.

The quality of the moonshine is primarily influenced by the recipe for making the mash and the seasoned technology of correct distillation. A moonshine still equipped with a dry steamer or a reflux condenser should also have good quality; copper is recognized as the most suitable material for it.

An important condition the observance of cleanliness: the fermentation tank, the moonshine still, the dishes for collecting and storing the product must be clean throughout the entire process.

However, even if all the rules of home brewing are observed, the final product needs additional cleaning and softening. It will be necessary to get rid of the bitterness and unpleasant odor. There are many ways to enrich and enjoy moonshine. Since ancient times, herbs, roots, spices have been used for this. Nowadays, the list of cleaners and additives has grown significantly.

To soften moonshine, sweeteners, acidifiers, spices, spices, nuts, charcoal, bark, etc. are used. Starting to eliminate a specific smell, it is necessary to fulfill all the conditions and proportions of the recipe, starting with small volumes of moonshine.

We clean the drink from impurities and unpleasant odors

Experienced homebrewers use the double distillation method - re-distillation allows you to get a cleaner product. Before the secondary distillation, the moonshine must be additionally cleaned to remove impurities harmful to the body.

To do this, prepare the product by diluting its strength to 30% - this concentration facilitates the separation of fusel oils. It is also recommended to let the moonshine stand for 2 days at room temperature before the cleansing procedure. Cleaning alcoholic beverage carried out using:


reference... The ferrying process is conventionally divided into “head”, “body” and “tail”. Most of the harmful impurities are in the "head" - in the first 10% of moonshine. In the “tail”, the strength of alcohol is reduced to 30-35º, the approximate amount is up to 10% of the total amount of the product. The "head" is poured out, and the "tails" are left for breeding the mash before distillation. The purest moonshine is distilled in the "body", it is most of all freed from impurities and a specific smell.

Moonshine can be flavored during the distillation process if you put an ingredient used to improve the taste in it. For example, juniper berries, dry citrus peel, dry herb.

Video on how to improve sam at home

In this video, an experienced moonshiner will tell you how to give a more magical taste and improve the smell of moonshine:

We give a softer taste

The taste of the resulting purified moonshine can be improved by softening it with additional products. At home, infusion or flavoring with flavors is used for this. Tinctures for raw materials are made without chemical additives, therefore they are completely safe for health.


In cases where a lot of softener has been added, the concentration is reduced by diluting pure alcohol with water. The container must be sealed and kept at a temperature close to zero degrees.

Reference. The higher the degree of moonshine, the more difficult it is to soften the drink, optimally alcohol should not exceed 40º.

What to add to improve?

Flavoring additives allow you to give the drink a certain taste, to make it look like any kind of alcohol. They are prepared based on natural ingredients and are easy to use. Currently on the market, flavoring additives are presented in a wide range. With the help of concentrated additives, moonshine can be given a cognac hue, a bitter taste or sweet liqueur.

Liquid food concentrate allows you to recreate all traditional alcoholic beverages: vodka, whiskey, wine, brandy, rum. Flavors can have coffee, chocolate, caramel and fruit aromas. Quality products have a persistent aroma and do not contain hazardous ingredients. Supplements come in the form of liquid essences and concentrates. It is better to buy them in specialized stores.

note: to play with the taste of the drink, it must be well cleaned and free from impurities.

Using natural supplements

Natural flavors can also improve the taste of homemade alcohol. For these purposes, herbs, spices, berries, dried fruits can be used. When using fragrant herbal supplements, it is important to maintain proportions. Spicy plants contain valuable biologically active substances distributed over leaves, flowers, roots, fruits.

With the advent of a dry steam chamber with a collapsible design, its new function was also indicated, namely, the aromatization of alcohol vapors directly during the distillation process. If before you were only fond of tinctures on moonshine or vodka, we recommend that you definitely try a new way of obtaining aromatic spirits, but for this you need to (we recommend choosing an apparatus with a distillation column of the brand). You can preliminarily familiarize yourself with in order to choose the most convenient collapsible steam boiler in operation, since they are of different designs. Let's now determine what is better to put in a dry pot to add aroma, smell to moonshine, so that it becomes a noble drink already in the process of secondary distillation.

A little about the process. When hot alcohol vapors pass through the plant components, maceration occurs - the separation of plant cells in tissues. In turn, intercellular juices and aromatic substances dissolve in alcohol vapors, and then condense together with them. Thus, at the end we get a strong drink flavored with natural ingredients. Therefore, it is important that we end up with a product that does not require additional purification. And this is possible only in the case of repeated distillation of raw alcohol, but not as when distilling mash.

The difference from the infusion of ready-made moonshine on vegetable raw materials is that in the case of steam maceration, NOT ALL of the components pass into an alcohol solution. So, the color of the drink most often does not change, i.e. the drink remains colorless. And on the example of citrus fruits, you can notice that with steam maceration, the drink does not acquire a bitterness, as in the case of infusion. Agree, this is a good reason to get new interesting drinks.

So, what can you put in a dry box in moonshine still:

  • spices (cinnamon, anise, cloves, star anise, allspice, coriander, vanilla - you can list it for a long time);
  • peel or peel of citrus fruits (lemon, orange, lime, tangerine, grapefruit, etc.);
  • berries and fruits (apples, pears are especially often used, but you can take any to your taste);
  • dried fruits (raisins, dried apricots, kumquat, prunes, etc.);
  • fresh and dry leaves and herbs (oregano, mint, lemon balm, currant, linden blossom, St. John's wort, etc.);
  • crackers or bread.

This list can be continued, the main thing is to have imagination. You can add anything and in any combination to the dry pot to improve the taste, as long as this “something” is fragrant, and several components taken are compatible with each other.

As a result, the drink retains its transparency and colorlessness, acquires a light aroma of the component that you put in the dry pot, and it usually reveals itself best in the aftertaste. The taste is less bright than when infused, but it is clearly present. In general, it can be noted that this function is very convenient for a hot pot for quickly obtaining aromatic alcoholic homemade drinks and allows you to diversify the feast at any time of the year.

Sukoparnik in a moonshine still serves as an additional cleaning agent alcohol. Vapors of fusel oils settle on the walls of the device and drip down to the bottom, and alcoholic drinks continue their way further.

You can put aromatic components in the chamber of a dry greenhouse - bark, peel, plant seeds, which contain the essential components of products. It is recommended to fill them up to a quarter of the container volume.

As a result of aromatization of the moonshine through a dry steamer, the drink acquires a light aftertaste, pleasant aftertaste. It is impossible to saturate the liquid with a strong odor using this method.

  • peel orange, grapefruit or tangerine, use fruit peels for flavor;
  • sort out, separate the tails, wash the raisins, lay out in a layer of 1-2 cm on the bottom of the container;
  • put fresh or dry currant leaves, after pouring a little clean water into the dry greenhouse;
  • peel the apples, put the peel in a layer of 2-3 cm. You can use parts of the fruit of peaches, melon, pear, banana;
  • a cinnamon stick, half a vanilla pod gives the drink a scent more suitable for a female;
  • a mint smell is obtained if you mix mint, wormwood, rosemary, sage, cloves in a ratio of 16: 2: 1: 2: 1;
  • similarity aniseed vodka comes out by mixing anise, fennel and star anise in a concentration of 2: 1: 1;
  • 2-3 bay leaves will give an original flavor to an alcoholic drink;
  • if you use aromas for moonshine cumin, juniper berries, fennel in equal proportions, the alcohol becomes similar to gin.

How to prepare raw materials for flavoring?

Help to flavor moonshine buds, roots, leaves, flowers, plant twigs, bark, seeds and fruits... It is quite difficult to prepare the ingredients yourself:

  • you need to navigate well in the vegetation, as there are many similar herbs and flowers;
  • you need to know the time of collection (month, part of the day);
  • you should be able to dry plants, have suitable conditions for this.

There are several ways to extract aromas from a plant:

  1. Infusion on an alcoholic drink, during which the taste and aroma of moonshine changes. The most suitable strength is 45-50 °. A higher concentration is obtained if the infusion is made several times with the same alcohol, replacing the flavoring component.
  2. It works the same way boiling product for 15-20 minutes under a closed lid. After distilling the broth through the cube, a kind of concentrated flavor is obtained, which must be added to the moonshine to change the smell of the drink. The product does not significantly affect the taste of alcohol.
  3. The aromatization of moonshine is made when the components are infused for a long time(from 3-4 days to several months).
  4. Moonshine has a persistent smell, the water for its mash infused with flavored products.

You can cook triple water to give a certain aroma to moonshine:

  • Grind 400 g of spices and insist on 3.5 liters of boiling water throughout the day;
  • add 2.5 liters of water, distill the solution several times so that the smell of the seasoning is well felt;
  • put a portion of the product and water in the liquid again;
  • overtake and repeat the process again.

The resulting flavor is mixed with moonshine in a 1: 6 ratio.

How to make moonshine tincture?

Rowan berries are used to ennoble the moonshine drink, changing the color of alcohol and its smell. Red is prized and chokeberry for the availability of raw materials, low cost, ease of preparation.

Recipes with red and black rowan

  • to prepare a delicious tincture, you need to collect rowan berries after freezing. Fill a quarter of a three-liter jar with washed berries, you can with a sprig. Pour 2 tbsp on top. tablespoons of granulated sugar or 1 spoon of honey. Fill the container with moonshine up to the shoulders. Close with a plastic lid, put in the cellar for 2-3 weeks. It is recommended to shake the contents periodically. When the infusion period expires, you should drain the liquid, throwing out the berries;
  • 100 pieces of young cherry leaves and 2 cups of blackberry pour 3 liters of moonshine, leave for 2 weeks, drain. It turns out a drink with a cherry aroma;
  • collect mountain ash after frost and roast the berries in the oven until soft. Insist in a three-liter container, covered with berries 2/3. When the liquid turns dark brown, stop infusion, add 50 g of honey and, after straining, bottle;
  • rowan juice squeezed from frozen berries, diluted in half strong moonshine, overtake in a cube. It turns out homemade vodka free of foreign odors.

To give a pleasant smell to moonshine, ready-made concentrated flavors, which are purchased in the retail network. Food concentrates are produced on a chemical basis.

From spices and aromatic plants, similar remedies can be prepared at home, based on recipes for mixtures that must be put into moonshine to improve its quality. Spices are used more often: nutmeg, cinnamon, various types of peppers, cardamom, star anise, cloves... Citrus peel is also used.

Aromatic additives significantly improve the taste and smell of alcoholic homemade drink... In this case, almost any plants and their fruits can act as ingredients.

It is better to add sweets to the drink using a 10% glucose solution (200 ml per 6 liters of alcohol with a strength of 45-50 °). At the same time, moonshine becomes soft, easy to drink, the next morning there is no hangover syndrome.

Moonshine - this drink has been popular in Russia for a long time. The huge problem with this alcohol is its bad smell. Do not believe those who say that moonshine can be completely cleaned of it. There are special flavors for moonshine that can change the smell, taste and color. But this will only be a change, not a complete elimination of the "flavor". To understand the essence of this process is very important for those people who want to make something more noble and pleasant for perception out of this alcohol.

Determining the taste of future moonshine

So, you have to decide what you want to turn your drink into. More precisely, its essence will remain the same, but you can "conjure" over the color and aroma. Dyes can help with this:

  • artificial;
  • natural.

The first type has a chemical basis in its composition. If you will be using it, be extremely careful. Pay attention to dosage, type of substance, expiration date.

But natural flavors are prepared from plant materials. Of course, this option is preferable. To make the taste and color of the drink more pleasant, moonshines often choose flavors based on cloves, vanilla, pepper, and cinnamon. Spices have been "endowed" with useful properties essential oils and glucosides. A high concentration of these substances is observed only in certain parts of plants. It can be:

  • seeds;
  • kidneys;
  • root;
  • leaves;
  • bark;
  • flowers;
  • fruit.

To "ennoble" the moonshine, you can add almost all berries or fruits to it, as well as flowers, herbs and even roots. You can get a unique drink that suits your taste.

Many villagers choose to harvest herbs on their own. But this is not as easy as it might seem at first glance. For the herb to be fragrant and healthy, it must be harvested at the right time and in the right place. Therefore, do not rush to "hunt" for her. Study the special guides first or talk to herbalist grandmothers. You can save time and effort by purchasing the necessary herbs at a regular pharmacy.

The most common methods of "witchcraft" over a drink

Black tea

This ingredient doesn't really change the taste of the alcohol, but it does dominate the color. One tablespoon of loose tea is enough for 3 liters of moonshine. After adding the tea, stir the drink and then close the lid well. The infusion time is 3-5 days.
Watch the color to decide which one you like. Remember that it will change every day. If you like exotic flavors, then take tea with bergamot or barberry flavor. You don't have to "trick" so much, but simply add a clove bud to regular tea. The choice is only yours.

Lemon or orange peel

They give the drink a pleasant sour taste. They reduce the specific "aroma" of the moonshine if it has gone through poor preliminary purification. You will need a pre-dried peel. If you chose lemon, you will get a light green alcohol. The addition of orange peel will give the drink a golden hue.

To "refine" 3 liters of moonshine, take the peel of 2 lemons or 1 orange. Place it in liquid and leave for 10-14 days. In this case, seal the container and keep it at normal room temperature.

This ingredient is most often used when they want to give moonshine a "cognac" color. The taste of alcohol will also change. Interesting notes will be introduced that can be found in Armenian cognacs. For 3 liters of moonshine, take 100 g of prunes. Alcohol should be insisted for at least a week, or a little longer. The drink will become softer, you will feel the change in aroma and color.

Partitions from nuts

To completely change the taste and color of alcohol, you need to add walnut partitions to it at the rate of 15 pieces per 1 liter of moonshine. After a week, strain the liquid and be surprised at the result.

Essence recipes for aromatizing moonshine

Special essences should be added only in good moonshine... It must be transparent, cleaned. Most often, aromatization is carried out through a dry stew. Moreover, it is the tinctures that are used, and not the solids.

Birch essence recipe

  • 40 g of birch buds;
  • 1 g cinnamon;
  • 3 g galangal root;
  • 5 g ginger;
  • 350 ml of moonshine with a strength of 40 degrees.

Grind all components and fill with moonshine. After that, keep the tincture for 14 days and strain. For 1 liter of liquid, you need 20-30 ml of ready-made birch essence.

Pepper essence recipe

We need:

  • 1.6 g red pepper;
  • 0.8 g galangal root;
  • 3.2 g black pepper;
  • 0.1 g of cloves;
  • 150 ml of moonshine with a strength of 40 degrees.

Grind all ingredients and add alcohol. Insist 2 weeks. For 1 liter of alcohol, you will need about 1.5-3 ml of pepper essence.

Kirschwasser Essence Recipe

You will need:

  • 160 g dried cherries (including seeds);
  • 180 ml of moonshine with a strength of 40 degrees.

Pour moonshine over the berries. In principle, this infusion can also be made from fresh cherries, however, then you will need alcohol with a strength of 60 degrees. Leave the liquid to infuse for 8-9 days. Then distill it through a distiller. You will get about 100 ml of essence, which will have a strength of 70% vol. For the prepared drink, you will need to take 5-10 ml of tincture for 1 liter of moonshine. Raspberry essence is made in the same way.

You will only get a good drink if you really worked hard to make it. If you just add tea to the moonshine, then just slightly change the color of the liquid. But aromatic essences will make your drink very pleasant and memorable both in taste and in shade.

Each moonshiner has his own secret to flavor the expelled product. After alcoholic beverage has been filtered, it is poured into containers. For improvement taste product, various flavors are added to moonshine - this is called aromatization of moonshine. There are a lot of flavoring recipes, each owner has his own secrets for obtaining a delicious product.

To improve the taste, natural aromatization components are most often used. Aromatizers can be herbs, There are recipes for wormwood moonshine, cardamom, rosemary, honey and others. Very often to eliminate fusel oils resorting to the help of hops. Aromatic notes can be obtained from berries, fruits, spices. Aromatization of moonshine can also occur in the distillation process. In this case, the flavors are added to the dry pot. The most successful aromatization.

Aromatization

There are many ways to add a pleasant aroma to moonshine.

Moonshine is flavored during the secondary run, during standing, extraction. Most often, they resort to using a cold connection. This is when the aromatization of a liquid occurs by pouring an aromatic extract into it. What does not just flavor an alcoholic drink. Exposure of the product takes place in a dark room, such as a cellar, although at room exposure, the effectiveness is higher. Exposure of the product takes from 14 to 160 days.

The standing time depends on the selected aroma recipe and the ingredients. There is a complex recipe that requires the combination of aromatic components with moonshine at a certain stage.

Important! The higher the temperature in the room where the alcohol is kept, the less time it takes for the aromatization process. For example, at 55% room temperature, it takes 1 week to stand with aromatization.

Each owner chooses how to flavor moonshine at his discretion, the recipe is very rich. To determine the taste, you can make a test batch, relying on several flavoring recipes.

Preparation of solutions for aromatization

The preparation of the solution, extract, broth occurs hot and cold (soaking). The prepared flavoring agent for moonshine has a specific aroma and characteristic flavor. Before soaking herbs for aromatization, they need to be crushed and filled with liquid to dissolve. The solvent should cover the finished raw material by 3 cm. Dry grass is soaked for 7-14 days, fresh - 4-5.

Before using for aromatizing herbs, they must first be crushed

When distilling decoctions, solutions have a high concentration and aromatic properties. In this way, the essence is prepared. To obtain the essence in home brewing, the raw material is passed through distillation in the system.

This supplement was prepared from a sweetener and a medicinal herb. Its purpose was to disguise fusel taste. Due to the complex composition of the recipes, such essences also add flavor to the drinks.

  • For one liter of water brought to a boil, add 1 kilogram of granulated sugar. During the cooking process, constant skimming is required until it stops collecting. The syrup is turned off, cooled down, kept for 2 weeks (until a thin precipitate appears).
  • Another sweetener is honey (a few spoons). While mixing moonshine with syrup, when heated, the liquid releases gases. It is required to wait until the gas emissions are over, after which activated carbon tablets (6 pcs.) Are added, then the composition is shaken. After a couple of hours, the alcohol is filtered and transferred to a prepared container, the alcohol is stored in the refrigerator for several days. Thanks to this process, the moonshine becomes softer and cleaner from the smells of alcohol.

What plants are suitable for recipes

To prepare homemade moonshine take:

  • saffron and carnation color;
  • foliage of tarragon, marjoram, lavrushka and dill;
  • anise berries, fruits of red and black peppers, vanilla;
  • rhizome of ginger, horseradish, golden root;
  • oak tree, cinnamon;
  • nutmeg, mustard, caraway seeds with calamus.

Important! Flavors are added to mash or ready-made moonshine. The effectiveness of the resulting drink is influenced not only by the aroma, but also by the aftertaste from the aroma.

For example, when you add citrus peel with lavrushka or vanilla to a product, you get a bitter aftertaste. From ginger, cloves, black pepper - a burning aftertaste. A spicy-burning liquid comes out after adding cardamom, nutmeg. Bitter-spicy drink, it turns out, from rosemary, saffron, star anise, cinnamon.

Correct preparation of raw materials

  • To refine the liqueur, herbs should be collected and prepared in advance. Most beneficial features substances in medicinal herbs - during flowering.
  • Maximum amount nutrients fruits, during the final ripening.
  • Umbellate seed, harvested by morning dew or damp weather.

The fruits are harvested in the morning or evening (as long as there is no heat). Early spring is the best time to collect unblown buds (cut with shoots).

Spring is the time of sap flow, during this period it is harvested oak bark... Raw materials are needed with a smooth structure from a young tree. The shelf life of such raw materials is up to 5 years.

We must not forget that the prepared raw materials require a long time of infusion.

All plants for aromatization of moonshine must be collected in ecologically clean places.

Competent drying

  • The rhizome is processed in a heat dryer, before processing the roots are crushed. The initial drying temperature is up to 40 degrees, at the end of the process - up to 60.
  • The foliage dries up without uniformity, so drying continues until the stalks are brittle.
  • The bark is dried in heat dryers, while pieces of raw materials should not be put into each other, otherwise the raw materials will rot.
  • The kidneys need to dry room temperature and for a long time.

Herbal Flavor Recipes

Moonshine on wormwood

For the preparation of this alcoholic product, foliage and color of wormwood (field), moonshine are needed. Medicinal raw materials must be dried. Prepared grass is poured into a container, a quarter of the total volume, filled with moonshine. The holding time is 1-2 weeks.

Homemade cognac

To make your own brandy you need:

  • granulated sugar - 1 tbsp. spoon;
  • tea - 1 tbsp. l .;
  • lavrushka - 3 leaves;
  • moonshine - 3000 ml;
  • black peppercorns - 5 peas;
  • cloves - 4 pcs.;
  • citrus peel.

All components are mixed, kept for ten days.

Cherry infusion

To make a cherry, you need cherries and moonshine. V three-liter jar 3 parts of the total volume of berries are poured. Half of the raw berry should be pitted, the remaining space is filled with moonshine. The standing time is one and a half months, then the cherry is filtered and poured into bottles, which must be tightly corked and kept for another 12 months.

Raspberry liqueur

For a robin, ready-made moonshine, sugar, raspberries, water are required. 3 parts of the total volume of raspberries are poured into the bottle, moonshine is poured to the top, the composition is settled in a darkened place for a couple of days. After that, the liqueur is drained, the spent berry is thrown away. The bottle is half filled with fresh berries, which are poured with prepared liqueur. After the holding time, the composition is filtered, sugar syrup is prepared separately, which is added to alcohol at the discretion of your taste.

Nut moonshine

To prepare this noble drink, you need: green walnuts, moonshine, granulated sugar. The nuts are crushed with all their contents, including the shell, this content is necessary for flavoring. The nut composition is poured into a glass container, filled with moonshine, aged for one month. During this period, the moonshine will turn brown.

After the end of the holding time, the alcoholic drink is poured into a jar with a nut product, granulated sugar is added, the mass is kept for 14 days. During this period, a sweet, nutty syrup is obtained, which combines with the previously drained moonshine. In order to lighten the drink, you can keep it for another week, after which the nut liqueur is poured into bottles.

Moonshine notes of multicolored

An alcoholic drink can be of a non-standard color, which can be achieved using natural ingredients.

  • For a yellow liquid, saffron is suitable.
  • The purple color comes from interaction with sunflower seeds.
  • Red moonshine is obtained after contact with blueberries.
  • The green drink comes out after contact with mint.
  • The blue drink comes out after aging on cornflowers.

Caraway moonshine

Caraway moonshine is prepared from one liter of water, 400 g of caraway seeds, sugar and moonshine. Water with caraway seeds is distilled through a distillation apparatus. The finished cumin liquid is kept in a darkened room for several months. To prepare a caraway alcoholic drink, before putting it on the table, water with sugar is added to the prepared solution and poured into the moonshine in the amount provided for by personal taste.

Important! To improve the taste of the drink, it is required to stand in a tub.

Aromatization Guide

When a solution is prepared for aromatization, the raw materials from which the composition is made, it is necessary to replace it with a new one, then a concentrated liquid is obtained, which much better changes the taste of the drink and changes the aroma. It is best to stand the raw materials in glass containers. For fast food delicious drink, it is required to put it in a water bath. For this, boards are placed on the bottom of the pan. Boiling lasts about an hour, after which the drink is cooled.

Flavoring is done in various ways, sometimes flavors can be added directly to the starter. Usually, peel or medicinal herb is taken for this. However, it should be borne in mind that the effectiveness of such a drink is lower than that prepared with a persistent flavor.

To enhance the taste of the expelled product, water is initially infused, which is necessary for making mash. The leaven is diluted in this water.

It sometimes takes years to get a fragrant masterpiece. Many people, faced with flavoring, tried more than a dozen recipes before getting the expected result. Aromatization allows you to improve the taste of your own alcoholic masterpiece.