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If you are seeing this for the first time, be sure to check out Part 1 for the first half of the story.
Straining the cranberries
With that out of the way, I want to repeat that this was an experiment. Why am I saying this again? Well, I guess it’s because my final liqueur ended up a little different than I expected. So, without further ado, here’s the rest of the story:
Strain, Filter and Repeat
Whether I am making a liqueur such as my limoncello, doing a vodka infusion, or experimenting with some other unusual homemade concoction, I find that investing a little more effort in the filtration pays dividends in the quality and often clarity of the final product. The cranberry liqueur was no exception. Continuing where I left off, the next step in this process was opening the infusion jar and pouring the liquid through a fine mesh strainer. I needed to do this in sections because my strainer is not very big. After pouring most of the liquid through and about half of the berry chunks, I began pressing the pieces with the back of a spoon to squeeze any remaining juice from them. I then transferred the chunks to a plate lined with cheesecloth. Finally, the remaining pieces of cranberries were poured into the strainer and I could rinse out the jar.
Filtering through paper towels saves time
This left me with a nice portion of high-alcohol cranberry extract and a pile of berry chunks on cheesecloth. After rolling the cheesecloth into a sort of burrito, I was able to twist and squeeze every last drop of extract from them. I believe this is an important step because the strongest flavors are likely right next to the fruit, if not locked up inside. Having discarded the fruit, I was left with a deep red extract. What looked a lot like fresh squeezed cranberry juice was deceptively high in alcohol and still contained a lot of tiny fruit particles.
Final filtration with a coffee filter
If you have read a few of my other recipes, this should be pretty familiar, because the next steps involve finer filtration. The fine mesh strainer is a good start, but I like to filter everything I make like this through a coffee filter. However, if I jump directly to the coffee filter now, it will take hours to drain through. That’s because the larger particles tend to clog a fine filter very quickly and stop the flow. My solution is simple: paper towels. By starting the filtration using a paper towel, I am getting most of the big stuff out. I usually pass the extract through paper towels twice, discarding the paper with each pass. By the time I am ready to use a coffee filter, most of the particles have been removed and the liquid drains through very quickly. This leaves me with a very clear extract.
Testing, 1, 2, 3
The final step involves cutting the alcohol to a reasonable level with water and adding sugar to sweeten the liqueur. I can accomplish both by using a simple syrup which is nothing more than sugar dissolved in water. The big question is how much? This is where my experiment took a turn toward the unexpected. I had originally thought I would need to cut the alcohol by about a factor of four, and based on other recipes, do so with a 1:1 simple syrup. In other words, I would mix equal portions of sugar and water, then mix this syrup with my extract at a ratio of about 4:1. Since I always have simple syrup around for cocktails (and you should too) this was easy to test. I started by measuring 1/4 ounce of extract and adding 1 ounce of my simple syrup. The result was disappointing. Not only did this taste far too sweet—it lost almost every indication of cranberry flavor. I quickly realized that while I had originally added 2 cups of alcohol to my berries, I had squeezed even more extract from them! I was diluting my mixture too much.
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