Here we have collected for you interesting recipes for alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks that you can prepare at home. Delight your guests and yourself.

Four simple recipes for making cognac from alcohol or vodka: traditional, aromatic, coffee and even ginger.

Four more recipes for making a wonderful drink, but based on: traditional, oak bark, oak chips, and also the hot method.

Perhaps the most popular liqueur comes from the south of Italy. A simple recipe and only four ingredients: alcohol, water, sugar and lemons.

A couple of recipes for a great liqueur based on Irish whiskey. This is not only the favorite liqueur of many women, but also an important component of a large number of different cocktails.

A classic recipe for making a strong alcoholic drink with the aroma of wormwood and anise. As well as ways to properly use Absinthe. Attention: distillation required!

Tequila is a strong alcoholic drink produced in Mexico from the juice of the Agave blue plant. Is it possible to make real tequila at home?

To prepare egg liqueur like Advocate at home, you need a little time and available ingredients. There are 2 recipes for you today.

Two great recipes for homemade chocolate liqueur, one using chocolate, the other adding cocoa to the chocolate flavor. All ingredients are available even during a crisis!

For you, a recipe for banana liqueur, such as Creme de Banane Morello (Creme de Banane - thick, white liqueurs, 17-25 degrees strength). If it's the season for cheap bananas, treat yourself and your loved ones!

You don't have to run to the store to enjoy delicious milk liqueur. Three great recipes for you! Available ingredients and quick preparation.

You can actually make a sparkling drink (champagne) at home! This does not require rare ingredients or high costs.

The secrets of mead and three excellent recipes are already waiting for you! These are classic, fortified and special mead recipes.

Almost every country has a traditional folk drink. In Russia it is sbiten. For you, alcoholic and non-alcoholic versions of sbiten recipes.

Authentic Calvados is produced only in France, but we can prepare apple brandy, very close in taste to the legendary drink.

Nowadays, few people know what polugar is, although back in the 19th century everyone heard this word. So called bread wine, which our ancestors made from wheat, rye or barley.

Georgia patented chacha as its brand in 2011. For you - the history and recipe for making real Georgian chacha.

The process of making moonshine under normal conditions is not at all complicated, and the ingredients are available in any home.

Today for you is the history and recipe of homemade bourbon - an American drink, which is essentially moonshine made from corn).

Amaretto is a dessert liqueur invented by Italians from the province of Saronno. Having tried it once, you will forever become a fan of the unusual bitter-almond taste of this drink.

General rules for making mulled wine and 5 great mulled wine recipes for you!

Warming mulled wine with the aroma of spices is an ideal companion for a long winter evening in pleasant company, especially if a snowstorm is raging outside the window.

If you still have old candied honey, prepare honey moonshine. Moonshine made from honey is soft, delicate in taste with a subtle honey aroma. This moonshine is radically different from mead..

For lovers of high-quality high-proof drinks, there are many recipes for making moonshine from juice. They have a mild taste, strength and are made from any juice, even fermented juice.

Since ancient times, people have made various alcohols on their own. Over time, people invented their own ways of making fun drinks and constantly improved them in terms of technology and taste. A well-made alcoholic drink is sometimes better than factory-made alcohol; there is almost no unpleasant sensation or hangover the next morning from a homemade product.

Classification

Conventionally, alcoholic drinks are divided into 3 groups:

1. Low alcohol group - beer and all beer drinks based on malt, hops and brewer's yeast.
2. Medium alcohol group - wine and wine drinks, which are obtained through alcoholic fermentation.
3. Strong alcohol group - alcohol, vodka, cognac and other drinks that are obtained by distillation.

How to do

Alcoholic drinks made at home always taste better than store-bought alcohol. How many different tinctures, balms, liqueurs with herbs, berries and fruits can be made!

The owner who makes his own drinks always takes a sample and adds the missing ingredients to taste, so homemade strong drinks have their own unique and inimitable taste.

Quick cognac with prunes

A strong drink according to this recipe is prepared quickly enough, it can be consumed within a day, but it is better to wait at least three days.

What do you need:

• high-quality vodka or multi-distilled moonshine – 0.5 l.;
• prunes – 30 g;
• sugar – 1 tsp;
• black tea in a bag – 1 pc.;
• cinnamon, vanilla - a pinch;
• cloves - to taste.

Preparation:

1. Pour vodka or moonshine into a glass jar.
2. Add sugar, chopped prunes, spices and tea bag.
3. Shake the container until the sugar dissolves.
4. Leave for 3 days in a dark place.
5. Before drinking, strain through a strainer.

Light apricot wine

This amber-colored wine with apricot flavor is good to drink on cold winter evenings. It will immerse you in memories of summer and warm sunny days.

What do you need:

• ripe juicy apricots – 15 kg;
• unrefined sugar – 10.5 kg;
• purified or bottled water – 7.5 l.

Preparation:

1. The fruits must be visually clean, without foulbrood. Wipe particularly dirty areas with a clean cloth. Do not wash under any circumstances, because the skin contains natural yeast that promotes natural fermentation. Remove pits from apricots. If the fruits are cultivated and not wild, do not throw away the seeds, they will still be useful.
2. Then mash the processed apricots with a wooden masher in an enamel container. Under no circumstances should you use metal utensils or devices to turn fruit into puree - the product will oxidize and become unusable.
3. The most difficult process is squeezing the juice from the pulp. To do this, gauze is folded in several layers and the juice is squeezed out through it. You need to squeeze out the liquid to the maximum.
4. Fill a bottle, canister, or any non-metallic container with squeezed juice, add sugar and add warm water.
5. Crush the peeled seeds and add them to the future wine; they will give it a special taste.
6. A water seal is installed on the container and placed in a warm place. Then you need to let the drink ferment for at least 3-4 days.
7. Then strain the mash, return it to a clean container and place it in a cool and dark place, for example, in a cellar, where the temperature is 9-15 degrees Celsius. Let the wine sit for at least a month, and the drink will be ready to drink.

Klyukovka “Pure Health”

This delicious and healthy drink, if drunk in moderation, is loved by the fair half of humanity. It prepares very quickly and without any nuances.

What do you need:

• cranberries – 1 kg;
• thin-skinned orange – 1 pc.;
• unrefined sugar – 50-60 g;
• pure alcohol – 1 liter;
• soft purified water – 200-300 ml.

Preparation:

1. Sort the cranberries, rinse and puree them in a blender.
2. Cut the orange together with the skin into 4 parts.
3. Place cranberries and oranges in a jar, add sugar and pour alcohol.
4. Leave in a dark place to infuse for 10 days.
5. After the expiration date, add water and leave for a day.
6. Strain and drink.

Tincture “Black Rowan”

The taste of the tincture according to this recipe is pleasant and slightly tart, suitable for lovers of the unusual. It's nice to drink slowly with friends on cold rainy evenings.

What do you need:

• chokeberry - 1.5 kg;
• granulated sugar – 150 g;
• purified vodka – 1.5 l.

Preparation:

A frank letter from a reader! Pulled the family out of the hole! I was on the edge. My husband started drinking almost immediately after our wedding. First, a little at a time, go to a bar after work, go to the garage with a neighbor. I came to my senses when he began to return every day very drunk, he was rude, and drank away his salary. It really got scary when I pushed him for the first time. Me, then my daughter. The next morning he apologized. And so on in a circle: lack of money, debts, swearing, tears and... beatings. And in the morning we apologize. We tried everything, we even coded it. Not to mention conspiracies (we have a grandmother who seemed to pull everyone out, but not my husband). After coding I didn’t drink for six months, everything seemed to get better, we began to live like a normal family. And one day - again, he was late at work (as he said) and dragged himself in the evening on his eyebrows. I still remember my tears that evening. I realized that there was no hope. And after about two or two and a half months, I came across an alcoholic on the Internet. At that moment, I had completely given up, my daughter left us altogether and began to live with a friend. I read about the drug, reviews and descriptions. And, not really hoping, I bought it - there was nothing to lose at all. And what do you think?!! I started adding drops to my husband’s tea in the morning, but he didn’t notice. Three days later I came home on time. Sober!!! A week later I began to look more decent and my health improved. Well, then I admitted to him that I was slipping the drops. When I was sober, I reacted adequately. As a result, I took a course of alcotoxic medication, and for six months now I have had no problem with alcohol, I was promoted at work, and my daughter returned home. I'm afraid to jinx it, but life has become new! Every evening I mentally thank the day when I learned about this miracle remedy! I recommend to everyone! Will save families and even lives! Read about the cure for alcoholism.

1. Remove the washed and dried rowan from the stalks and carefully pour into the bottle, alternating with sugar - a layer of rowan, a layer of sugar. Fill the entire container.
2. Then carefully add vodka into the container, pour in as much as will fit.
3. Cover the bottle with a lid and place in a warm, sunny place.
4. Forget about the tincture for a month.
5. Carefully strain the finished tincture through a strainer or gauze and pour into bottles. Store in a cool place.

Mead

This is the easiest alcohol to prepare based on sugar and honey.

What do you need:

• sugar – 1.5 kg;
• honey – 1.5 kg;
• purified water – 10 l.;
• live yeast – 100 g.

Dissolve sugar and honey in water, add live (pressed) yeast and set aside for fermentation in a warm place. After 10 days, the fermentation process will end and the drink will be ready. By the way, if you distill mead through a moonshine still, you will get excellent honey moonshine.

Berry liqueur “New Year’s”

The liqueur differs from the tincture in degrees, usually it contains up to 25 degrees of alcohol, it is sweeter and tastier. The liqueur is prepared according to this recipe in the summer, when there are fresh berries.

What do you need:

• black currant – 250 g;
• red currants – 250 g;
• cranberries – 250 g;
• small tangerine – 1 pc.;
• unrefined sugar – 350 g;
• cinnamon – 2 sticks;
• purified moonshine or vodka – 700 ml.

Preparation:

1. Place the washed berries in a large jar, add tangerine slices, add sugar.
2. Pour alcohol over the berries and seal the jar.
3. Place the jar to infuse in a sunny place and forget about it for a month.
4. After a month, squeeze out the contents of the jar, strain and pour into bottles. Keep refrigerated.

Plum moonshine

To get a strong drink, you need to have a moonshine still at home. Without him, nothing will work out, there will only be a brew.

What do you need:

• ripe plums – 13 kg;
• filtered water – 12 l.;
• live yeast – 120 g;
• sugar – 2 kg.

Preparation:

1. The plum should be very ripe or overripe. You need to knead it in any way without removing the bone. Transfer to a fermentation container. You can immediately mash the plum in it.
2. Dilute the sugar in a separate bowl with warm water until completely dissolved and then pour into the crushed plums.
3. Activate the yeast in warm water until foam appears. Add to plum mixture.
4. Pour in the remaining amount of water and mix well.
5. Place the mash in a fairly warm place for fermentation. The warmer it is, the faster the process goes.
6. After fermentation, squeeze the porridge through cheesecloth and strain the liquid through a filter.
7. Pass the mash through a moonshine still. The drink is ready.

Moonshine from missing jam

If you seal the jam unsuccessfully, and it decides to go abyss and explode, and even in large quantities, it’s okay - you can always make delicious moonshine from the product using this simple recipe.

What do you need:

• any jam – 7 kg;
• sugar – 4 kg;
• filtered water – 30 l.;
• live yeast – 350 g.

Preparation:

1. Heat the water and add jam to it, mix thoroughly. Do not bring to a boil.
2. Pour sugar into the mixture, add yeast, after activating it in warm water.
3. Mix everything thoroughly and place the container in a warm place to ferment for a week.
4. Squeeze and strain the mash through filters and distill in a moonshine still. From this amount of wort, the output will be approximately 9 liters of moonshine.

If you decide to make homemade wine from grapes, apples and other fruits or berries, then never wash them. There are natural yeasts on the skins, which contribute to the rapid fermentation of the wort. Wine that is not strong enough can be made fortified by adding alcohol, moonshine, or vodka.

To make wine at home, a thorough check of all berries for rot and spoilage is required. If even one rotten berry gets into the wort, all the work will go down the drain, and nothing can be fixed.

If a recipe contains live (compressed) yeast, it should always be activated in warm water until foam appears.

Useful video: making cider

To learn how to make cider from juice at home, watch the video below.

Conclusion

Making alcoholic beverages at home is a labor-intensive process. There will be a bottle of wine, vodka or other homemade drink on the festive table, and only the winemaker will know what products the drink is made from. By the way, alcohol abuse is fraught with alcohol addiction, so you need to drink and taste in moderation!

Girls usually ask similar questions. After all, men, as a rule, opt for really strong alcohol, from which they want to get a full range of vivid sensations. For lovely ladies, taste comes first, and effect comes second. Let's look at some delicious ones for girls.

"Mojito"

"Mojito" is one of the most delicious alcoholic drinks. He enjoys extraordinary success not only in Cuba, which is his historical homeland, but throughout the world. The secret of the drink’s popularity lies in its simple recipe and minimal number of ingredients. To prepare it you need the following:

• light rum;
• lime;
• mint;
• sweet soda;

An alcoholic cocktail based on the above ingredients acquires an indescribable taste, which extremely harmoniously combines sugar sweetness, refreshing mint and piquant citrus fruits. All these components somewhat distract from the increased strength of the alcohol. If the question is which delicious alcoholic drink to choose to quench your thirst in the summer, you should definitely give preference to Mojito.

"Pina colada"

If you ask girls what, in their opinion, are the most delicious strong alcoholic drinks, many of them will mention Pina Colada. Initially, the cocktail was just strained pineapple juice. That is why the name of the drink can be literally translated as “filtered pineapple.” Later, the bartenders decided to add an alcoholic component to the recipe. Thus, the legendary alcohol was born, which today can be ordered in almost any nightclub. Nowadays, Pina Colada is officially recognized as one of the main national drinks in Puerto Rico.

To prepare a delicious alcoholic drink “Pina Colada”, just combine the following ingredients:

• Pineapple juice;
• white rum;
• coconut syrup.

"Sex on the Beach"

According to many girls, the most delicious alcoholic drink in the world is “Sex on the Beach”. Anyone who has once smelled its exceptional fruity aroma will never forget it. Initially, the cocktail was distributed under the name “Sand in your shorts.” However, when the word “sex” ceased to confuse a wide audience, the authors of the drink decided to return to the original name.

"Daiquiri"

This delicious alcoholic drink owes its appearance to a Cuban engineer named Jennings Cox. The latter was engaged in the development of manganese ore deposits in the Daiquiri region. This man liked to quench his thirst with the traditional alcohol for these places - rum. One day, Cox decided to cool the alcohol with ice, which was used in fittings for industrial equipment, while simultaneously adding lime and sugar to the drink. The result is a simple, refreshing Daiquiri cocktail. The miners liked the drink so much that the recipe subsequently spread throughout the country.

“Daiquiri” gained worldwide fame thanks to the outstanding writer Ernest, who spent a significant part of his life in Cuba. It was with a glass of this cocktail that he loved to spend time in local bars.

"Long Island"

The delicious Long Island alcoholic drink was invented during the period of Prohibition. This alcohol was served to visitors to public establishments under the guise of ordinary tea. The cocktail was similar to it not only in shade, but also in aroma. However, the drink gained popularity only decades after the ban on the distribution of alcohol was lifted.

Rumor has it that in the 70s in the New York area called Long Island they liked to organize one kind of entertainment. Local residents often organized a kind of competition, during which they had to run into every bar they came across and drink a glass of an alcoholic cocktail. The winner was the one who managed to get to the end of the street without outside help. Over time, bartenders began to use stronger alcoholic bases to prepare drinks.

The Long Island cocktail became a real hit during this period. It was originally prepared using light rum. Then the recipe began to change somewhat. Vodka, gin, tequila and liqueur were also added to the drink. The same ingredients remained lime juice, Coca-Cola and ice.

"Blue Lagoon"

This drink stands out from other tasty varieties of alcohol with its unusual blue hue. When it comes to preparing such a refreshing alcoholic cocktail, everything is quite simple. The basis of the drink is vodka combined with Sprite or Schweppes. A teaspoon of lemon juice adds a piquant taste. The cocktail gets its unique color thanks to the presence of Blue Curasao liqueur.

Initially, it was believed that the drink was named after the film of the same name, which was successful in the 60s of the last century. As it turned out later, the author of the popular alcoholic cocktail is an American bartender named Andy McElhoy. The latter came up with the name for the drink after visiting the Icelandic resort of the Blue Lagoon. The pronounced blue tint of the cocktail reminded him of this particular place.

ANNA ALEXANDROVA

foodie, opens a culinary blog, cooks at dinner parties, conducts master classes

I always bring recipes from my trips to Italy: I learn them from people I manage to meet during my travels. After another such trip, I came up with a recipe for basil liqueur. It all started with him. Then I tried to buy basil liqueur to compare with the one I made. But in all the stores they answered that this is a village trick, only passionate housewives prepare it. So I treasure the recipe and feel like part of a secret society.

Now I’m also making limoncello, cream cocoa, blackberry liqueur with cinnamon and another one of my own from a whole bouquet of aromatic herbs. It is very important to use only quality ingredients. For the first time I prepared basil liqueur in the gray St. Petersburg winter. I needed to find 80 fresh green basil leaves. That’s how I met a wonderful woman, Julia, who sells herbs and vegetables at the Kuznechny Market. She always has basil, and it smells wonderful. I also buy lemons for other liqueurs at the market. More often, if it’s not limoncello, I choose hybrids of lemon and orange - their zest has a special bitter taste and bright aroma. I really like him.

A separate topic is the base for the liqueur. In Italy, for example, alcohol is sold in the alcohol departments of supermarkets. The bottles say prodotto ideale per la preparazione dei liquori, that is, “ideal for making liqueurs.” We don’t have that, so I often work with just very good vodka.

Each liqueur has its own tricks. With some you need to do something every day and for more than one week, others you can forget about for the time being, and then just enjoy. This is not only an interesting process, but also an opportunity to prepare the ideal option for yourself, and not be disappointed when opening another bottle with a beautiful label.

Liqueur recipe
blackberry

Boil syrup from sugar and water - about 100 ml of water for 120 g of sugar, and cool it.

Place two large handfuls of washed and dried berries into a wide-necked bottle, pour in 500 ml of vodka, carefully pour in the syrup and add a cinnamon stick.

Close the jar tightly with a lid and leave for five weeks in a warm, dark place. (You can sometimes peek and gently turn the jar over so that all the contents are mixed.)

Strain thoroughly before serving.

Moonshine

VITALY KUVAKIN

head of work department
with farmers LavkaLavka

I have always treated homemade alcohol with love: wherever I was served, the quality was at its best. Previously, in my student years, all inexpensive alcohol was burnt. I remember in the late nineties I went with a friend to a recreation center. Wine was bought specifically from several stalls on Finban in the hope that at least something from the factory would be found. In the end, I had to drink everything in glasses in one gulp, holding my noses.

At home it's a different story. My favorite is moonshine made from honey and bee bread, infused with St. John's wort and oregano. It is made by hereditary moonshiner Zoya in a remote village in the Pskov region. I recently went there to pump honey after the Honey Savior. The raw materials and the experience of generations give a masterpiece drink with a slightly relaxing effect.

Moonshine of no less high quality is passed on by my father’s friend, an Armenian by nationality. His relatives make a unique drink from mulberry or mulberry - “Mulberry” with a strength of 62 degrees. Pleasant smell, mild taste (despite the strength), invigorating effect.

Also worthy of mention is the so-called polugar, which my friends from the Doctor Guber company, which produces moonshine stills, treated me to. Polugar is what they drank in Russia before vodka, that is, until 1867. Essentially this is a rye distillate obtained using a conventional still. It is interesting because after distillation it is poured into a copper annealer, in which exactly half is burned. Hence the name. Polugar has a subtle taste of rye bread.

I myself make moonshine with my grandfather, with whom we are very friends.

Beet moonshine,
or beet vodka

Grind the beets (of course sugar), bake in the oven and squeeze out the juice. Add 200 g of yeast to the resulting 30 liters of beet juice. The volume can be reduced according to the proportions.

Leave to ferment in a warm place.

After five or six days the mash will be ripe. When passed through a steam apparatus, five liters of vodka are obtained.

Beer and cider

ALEXEY BELETSKY

brewer, cidermaker
and founder of the craft beer brand Toksovskaya Sidreria

I am an experienced beer geek and have been well versed in everything related to beer for a long time. But I was too lazy to start cooking at home, plus there was no infrastructure. The first proper retail store for home brewers in St. Petersburg opened only a few years ago. In neighboring Finland, for example, an entire department in regular hypermarkets is dedicated to these products.

I got involved two years ago, starting with cider. I just needed to solve the problem with the huge harvest of apples at the dacha. Everything turned out to be simpler than I thought. And since the fermentation process of apple juice and beer wort is not much different, at the same time I decided to make a couple of beers - in those styles that are not produced or imported in Russia.

There are two ways to make wort at home - simpler and more complex. The first is to buy malt extract (sold in large cans). You just need to dilute it with water and boil it in a saucepan. Or you can add hops and whatever comes to mind - spices, fruits, cocoa.
The second method - the classic one - is to take malt, grind it and prepare the wort yourself. This requires special equipment, good theoretical training and manual work. At the same time, extract brewing is much more expensive - one brew will cost from 1,500 rubles. Plus equipment for a beginner - three to four thousand rubles. In all grain brewing, raw materials are cheaper, but equipment costs are higher. Time costs - from a couple of hours, depending on the chosen method, plus several weeks of waiting while the beer ferments. This period depends on the style and characteristics of the beer, the selected yeast strain, temperature and other circumstances.

Apples are a different story. All that is sold in stores are dessert varieties that are good for eating, but give little juice, it is not aromatic and is not bitter or tannic enough. In all traditional cider countries there is a separate culture of growing apples specifically for cider. My concept is that we need to take and make northern, Ingrian cider from our local apples that grow in our country houses. Many people have friends who can be involved in production. It turns out not like Asturian, Norman or Welsh cider, but the aroma is like fresh juice from an orchard apple tree, familiar to everyone from childhood.

Regarding the sale of craft, this area is catastrophically regulated in our country. Completely legal registration costs crazy money. That’s why, among other things, Russian craft beer, right from the moment it appears, sometimes costs more than European or American beer. Of course, if the state left small producers alone, the craft production of beer, cider and wine would develop much faster. In the United States, the phenomenon of the “beer revolution,” as a result of which microbreweries snatched a healthy chunk of the market from global light lager producers, began precisely with “garage” brewers.

I will share the recipe for Hopheads are Pussies beer. The idea behind this strain is to use dried catnip grass instead of aroma hops, which has a lemony and minty aroma and is attractive to cats. The variety is dedicated to the Canadian mayor, the cat Stubbs, who received catnip infusion as treatment after being wounded. Buy malt extract (2.7 kg), yeast (Safale S-04), hops (Northern Brewer, 50 g and East Kent Goldings, 25 g), entry-level fermentation equipment from a home brewing store (for example Mirbeer.ru) beer (fermenter with tap, water seal, hydrometer, disinfectant, etc.). Buy catnip (catnip, 50 g) at an eco-products store (for example Ecotopia.ru) or a pharmacy.

Hopheads are Pussies Homemade Extract Beer Recipe

(English: “Hopheads - cats”)

Dilute the malt extract in a large saucepan with 7-10 liters of water (the saucepan should be about 2/3 full) and gently bring to the boil, stirring. Add Northern Brewer hops, 50g, for bittering. Boil for 60 minutes. At 55 minutes add East Kent Goldings hops, 25g, for aroma. Turn off the heat and quickly cool the pan (you can fill it to the top with clean cold water and place it in a sink with cold water). While the wort is cooling, disinfect the fermentor, lid and water seal.

Carefully pour the wort from the pan into the fermentor and add water to about 15-17 liters. Wait until the wort cools completely. Measure the initial density of the wort - you need readings in the range of 12–13%. If the density is higher, add water to the required level. Add yeast.

Close the fermentor tightly and insert a water seal filled with a disinfectant solution or vodka. Ferment beer at room temperature, not in the sun or near a radiator. After a week, pour the beer into a second container for secondary fermentation. Add catnip to the poured beer and close the lid, insert the water seal.

Aging your beer with catnip can last anywhere from a couple of days to weeks, depending on how intense the flavor you want. After aging, add dextrose to the beer at the rate of 7–8 g per liter and bottle the beer.

Cider

SLAVA MAKHOTKIN

programmer

I make cider because it is a fairly easy drink to make, healthy and tasty. This is the second year I’ve been preparing it from organic apples from my own garden in the Novgorod region. Cider is carbonated fermented juice. Apples of autumn and winter varieties are usually used for it. But I decided to try to make it from summer ones that are already ripe. First, the juice is squeezed out and filtered from the pulp to form wort. The wort is put into primary fermentation (I use glass jars).

I don’t use commercial yeast to ferment cider; wild yeast that lives on apples copes with this (they look like a light white coating on the peel). But, as far as I know, Western cider makers, especially large ones, introduce a pure yeast culture, for example, for white wine. This gives a predictable fermentation result. “Savages” can behave in different ways, sometimes adding shades of taste or aroma. Berries, in particular raspberries, are rich in wild yeast, so you can make your own yeast starter.

The yeast begins to eat the sugar in the juice and release carbon dioxide. After primary fermentation (takes one to two weeks), the cider needs to be poured with a tube into another container and placed in the refrigerator for secondary fermentation (about two months). During this time, the cider becomes clear. The strength is usually 3-4%. You can increase it, for example, by exposing the cider to frost and waiting a little. The water will begin to freeze into a crust, and you can remove it. Whether or not to carbonate your cider is your choice. In Spain, for example, cider is not carbonated.

My cider volumes are small, no more than 20 liters. To do more, you need to take the whole process to a new level. First, you need a press, not a juicer. You can buy a metal press, or make a wooden one yourself: there are verified drawings on the Internet. But you can’t put apples into a press right away. They need to be chopped first, so an apple chopper or crusher is required. With the equipment, you can make hundreds of liters of juice and cider. But here the question arises: where to store the drink. You can’t put it in a basement in the village: it will freeze. There is also little free space in the city. Therefore, making cider for sale is not very interesting to me.

In my opinion, the culture of homemade alcohol is quite developed in Russia. Of course, without claims to exceptional quality and characteristics. The presence of dachas or grannies with a garden plays a role here. There are often so many apples that it’s a shame to throw them away. Therefore, they make wine or distill them - the result is homemade Calvados.

Apple Cider Recipe

Squeeze out the juice, be sure to filter it from the pulp, pour it into a jar and close it with a rubber glove (first make a hole in it with a needle). The glove will not allow air into the jar during fermentation, otherwise it will turn out to be vinegar. Within one to two weeks the juice will ferment vigorously and the glove will inflate.

When the glove deflates, pour the juice into another jar, if possible without sediment, and put it in the refrigerator. After two months the cider is ready.

To carbonate the drink, you need to pour it into champagne bottles, add half a spoon of sugar and cap it. It is advisable to twist it with wire. If there are no suitable bottles, you can pour them into plastic ones. After a week or two, the cider will become carbonated (unless the bottles explode, of course).

Serve chilled, or with cheese.

Tinctures

LIDA LEBEDEVA

teenage psychologist

I made my first tincture when I was 20 years old. My friend Anya had a country house with a garden in the Moscow region, there were a lot of apples there, and some were given to me. When I had already fed everyone with pies and jam, my friend’s older sister suggested making a tincture. Everything was simple: a three-liter jar, cut the apples to the neck, fill with vodka. It turned out to be a bomb! It’s all so simple, I thought, and when I arrived in St. Petersburg to visit my ex-boyfriend, I already supplied three three-liter jars. We drank them at the first party. Then, while working at LavkaLavka, I began to seriously delve into the production process, product quality, and interaction of components. There I already had cranberry, chokeberry with spices, strawberry with rhubarb, spicy and “Rassolnaya”.

I tested the results on the packaging guys, changed something, added something, abandoned something. I started collecting recipes, for example, “Tolstovskaya”, Masha Kube taught me how to make it, Zhenya Zaitsev gave me the recipe for his horseradish. There is a recipe for a spicy fifty-degree tincture, which its creator bequeathed to me almost as a recipe for cola.

One day, Matilda and Sergey Shnurov became interested in my liqueurs and invited me to make them for the new restaurant “Kokoko” - from local seasonal products. I brought 57 liters of different liqueurs for the opening of the restaurant alone, I hope people won’t forget me. In six months at Kokoko, I have already learned how to work with alcohol, clean burnt vodka with cucumbers, coal and eggs, new recipes have appeared and new topics for conversations with my grandparents at the dacha.

I work in my profession, but I don’t give up “insisting.” Now the apple season has begun, then plums, then sea buckthorn and horseradish. My long-time dream was to own a moonshine still. And we found him - with another famous nun Olya Bogdanova, the bar manager of Blue Pushkin. I think it'll be cool, or we'll just have some fun.

VIKA RYSKINA

employee of the creative department of “New Holland”

My parents started making wine when I lived in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, about twenty years ago. Outside the city there was a public pear orchard, next to which chokeberry bushes grew. Every year our whole family came there to pick pears, but also berries for compotes. There were always so many berries that our parents somehow decided to make wine from the harvest we collected. Then I did not take part in the process at all and only observed. With the move to St. Petersburg, I had to forget about the preparations for a while, and then my parents purchased a country plot, and the process resumed. Chokeberry bushes grew on the site, and compotes worried us less. There was nothing left to do but start producing homemade wine.

I do everything by eye. But it is important to monitor the process - to prevent mold from forming during fermentation, it is better to remove suspicious berries from above. And strain the wine more often so that there is no tartar (this is a sediment that forms during the winemaking process). Bottles for wine must first be sterilized, and the finished ones must be stored in a dark place, without direct sunlight on the bottles. During the fermentation process and the wine playing, it is important that water does not get into the jar, and that the jar is tightly closed with a lid with a water seal.

We always make a water seal ourselves from a plastic tube (usually you need to buy a dropper at the pharmacy for this). We insert one end of the tube tightly into the hole in the lid with wine, and lower the other end of the tube into a container with water. Sometimes they used a glove that was inflated during fermentation processes.

Sometimes we add red or black currants, so the wine turns out sweeter and with a currant aftertaste, but I prefer the clean, “poor” and slightly sour taste of chokeberry.

Recipe

Mash the berries (you can use a mechanical meat grinder), and then add sugar (about half a glass per kilogram of berries). Sugar and berries must be mixed well and left with the lid closed for a week in a warm place to ferment. At this stage, it is important to stir the juice and pulp to prevent mold from forming.

After a week of fermentation, select the pulp from the juice and squeeze it out, add water at room temperature (no more than a liter). Add sugar (you can also mash grapes or black raisins, this stimulates the fermentation process). Leave this mixture for a week (you will get another portion of wine).

Filter the juice remaining after the first fermentation through a regular colander and pour into a glass container. The wine will arrive in it, already with a water seal.

Photos: Yasya Vogelgardt

Text: Snezhana Maleichenko

Refined and tasty alcoholic drinks do not have to be bought in a store. They are easy to make at home using natural ingredients. Homemade alcohol does not contain harmful impurities in the form of dyes and sweeteners, and the quality of liqueurs or liqueurs often exceeds the characteristics of purchased products.

Recipes for delicious liqueurs

For the alcohol base, it is best to use home double distillation, purified by charcoal filtration. If it is not available, a good variety will do. When using such alcohol, homemade alcohol will not have any foreign odors or unpleasant taste.

The creamy base is prepared from 1 can of sweet condensed milk (according to GOST) and 0.5 liters of cream 10% fat. The components must be mixed until smooth, gradually pouring in a strong cold coffee solution (1 tablespoon of powder and no more than 0.5 cups of water).

Strain the alcohol from the wood chips. In a clean, beautiful bottle, combine the creamy mixture and alcohol, mix well and let it brew for 3-7 days in a cold place, shaking daily. It is also advisable to shake the bottle before use, as homemade Baileys may separate.

Other simple alcohol recipes at home

You can make other drinks at home by infusing alcohol with herbs or fruits. A pleasant and healthy drink can be made from spring rhubarb petioles:

1. Peel and chop 600-700 g rhubarb stalks. If you take pink ones, the drink will turn out more beautiful.
2. Mix them with sugar or honey (150-200 g) and crush them a little with a pestle. Add the zest of 1 orange or lemon, put a medium cinnamon stick (5-7 cm), 3 Jamaican peppercorns or cloves, a piece of ginger (3-4 cm).
3. Pour all 1 liter of vodka or moonshine, close and leave for 1-1.5 months, shaking daily. Strain and pour into clean containers.

Making drinks at home is not just for fun. Provençal herbal balsam can treat colds, although it is also drunk as an aperitif. Needed:

• 750 ml moonshine 45%;
• 60 g fennel seeds;
• 3 tbsp. l. lavender flowers;
• 3 tbsp. l. rosemary;
• peel of 1 orange;
• 100 ml of herbal honey;
• 50-100 ml of sugar syrup.

Grind the fennel seeds and put them in a container along with the rest of the herbs and zest, add honey, pour in alcohol and leave for 4-7 days in a dark place. Make simple sugar syrup, add it to taste to the tincture and keep the balm for about 2 more weeks.