The Cottage Smallholder


stumbling self sufficiency in a small space


Italian sweet chestnut liqueur recipe

Posted in Liqueurs | 6 comments

Italian sweet chestnut liqueur recipe

We make a wide range of fruit liqueurs every year but have never made a nut one. I was delighted to find this recipe for Italian sweet chestnut liqueur when I was nosing about on the Internet last week. The promise of this had Danny sitting, knife and chestnut in hand, for a good hour and a half last night. Shelling chestnuts is a bore. It’s fiddly. It’s very frustrating if you have bought a batch with a few bad ones as you can’t tell the state of the kernel within from the external appearance of the nut. But if you can tempt...

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Lemon Gin Recipe.

Posted in Liqueurs | 49 comments

Lemon Gin Recipe.

I went to New Zealand for the first time over 30 years ago and Lemon Gin was the pre dinner tipple in one of the houses that we visited. It came in gallon jars and was served neat in small tumblers. This was the first time I’d seen anyone pouring out drinks from such a large container. In this particular house the lemon gin jar doubled as a doorstop in the kitchen during the day. I forgot all about lemon gin until my sister and I got into making sloe gin. We had made a heady investment of a case of gin and, after picking a vast sack full...

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Sloe Sherry recipe

Posted in Liqueurs | 43 comments

Sloe Sherry recipe

This sherry recipe works equally well for the sloes, bullaces and damsons that are left over from your sloe gin. Our old pal Gilbert always makes this on Boxing Day, having polished of a few bottles at their renowned Christmas Eve Drinks Party and toasted the Queen with sloe gin on Christmas day. He claims that it is to salve the disappointment of his Christmas stocking. Everyone knows that anything as small as a stocking would never grace the foot of Gilbert and Marjorie’s bed. Having finished the final batch of our 2005 sloe and damson...

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Gilbert’s Grapes in Grape Liqueur Recipe

Posted in Liqueurs | 5 comments

Gilbert’s Grapes in Grape Liqueur Recipe

I’m still ploughing through the fourteen kilos of grapes that we were given last week. I made another batch of grape jam, set some aside for wine and rang my friend Marjorie. She lived in France for years, is passionate about two things. Gilbert and food. Gilbert, her husband, describes himself as, “Rotund, relaxed and retro.” Quietly, he is a true bon vivant. Marjorie’s food is superb. She immediately suggested her grape liqueur recipe. Then I remembered finishing a wonderful meal at Marjorie’s with little...

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Best Chilli Sherry recipe

Posted in Liqueurs | 20 comments

Best Chilli Sherry recipe

I’m not successful when I try and grow chilli plants from seed. Everything starts off well, and I give my surplus plantlets away to friends. A few weeks later, when my plants are beginning to look peaky, I spot the giveaways flourishing in their gardens. It’s maddening. Last year one friend even complained that she had a glut! So I supply the neighbourhood but am forced to cheat with chilli plants at home. By mid July, when it’s clear that all hope is lost, I drive to a good garden centre. If I’m lucky, I’ll find...

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Book review: Two good books for winemaking by C J J Berry and Gillian Pearks

Posted in Reviews, Wine | 3 comments

Book review: Two good books for winemaking by C J J Berry and Gillian Pearks

Back in the seventies, when buying a bottle of wine was an expensive treat, the author C. J. J. Berry shot to fame with his series of amateur winemaking books. This is the rather smooth looking character on the left. He cashed in on the great home winemaking boom of the sixties and seventies. As glugable wine began to fill supermarket shelves, the home winemaking craze declined and you could often find his books in charity shops. Now that country winemaking is enjoying a small renaissance his books are becoming sought after again. The best of...

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Raspberry gin recipe

Posted in Liqueurs | 246 comments

Raspberry gin recipe

This recipe can also be used for blackberry gin and vodka Our autumn fruiting raspberries are late, but they’re finally here. Just a few of them. Succulent and tempting and the promise of more to follow. If you grow autumn fruiting raspberries you might like to have a go at making this delicious raspberry gin. The liqueur is delicate yet has a fresh raspberry bite that makes a change from the raunchiness of sloe gin. (This is a fresh review. I nipped out to the barn this evening to try some of our July 2006 vintage and it was superb....

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Recipe for Bullace Vodka

Posted in Liqueurs | 44 comments

Recipe for Bullace Vodka

A friend from Kent gave us a small bag of bullaces (a small type of plum that grows wild in English hedgerows) last October. We bunged them into a small Le Parfait jar, topping it up with sugar and vodka. We found the forgotten jar last weekend, hidden behind some pickled plums. It was excellent. Unfortunately, as you can see from the photo, it didn’t last very long. As with all fruit liqueurs, you can use gin or vodka as the base. We have a preference for gin in fruit liqueurs but this bullace vodka was superb. We will certainly make...

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