The Cottage Smallholder

My previous life was creating new alcoholic drinks for sale all over the world - and I had so many job title changes over the years that I named myself The Liquineer and that was my e-mail signature for many years. The company I worked for owns Gordons, Gilbeys and Tanqueray Gins, Baileys, Guiness, Johnnie Walker, Bells, Captain Morgans, Smirnoff to name but a few, so I had plenty of good stuff to work with. As a condition of retiring, I can't actually talk about much of the work I used to do except in generalities.

I have also been an experimenter at home with various wines, beers and other liqueur style mixes, and sometimes brought work samples home to try (so as not to drink and drive ) and the OH and I have ended some evenings feeling quite merry- not everything tasted good so it did have its downside.

I think the best thing I did last year which was done at home was Seville marmalade Gin. This consisted of:-

1lb Home made Seville Orange marnmalade (made by the OH)

700mls Gordons Gin

stir well together and leave (gets very sticky!) for 4 to six weeks. Pour off the free liquid - and then comes the slow part- the alcohol reacts with the pectin in the fruit and precipitates it out to give you a nice gooey mess. I had access to laboratory filter papers- after doing a rough filter through muslin to remove mostly the peel, I proceeded to set up multiple filtering funnels and using lots of filter papers ended up with a clear liquid, which was added to the rest of it giving an orange coloured and delicious liqueur. It improved with standing as well.

It sounds as though my marmalade Gin was hard work, but it was not reaally- we just ended up one night in the kitchen with multiple filter funnels (all gaily coloured  -orange, blue and white) filtering the liquid and that was it, no more than an evenings work. I will amend my instructions to say that the rough filter through muslin took place the same day as the mixing of the marmalade and gin and then it was left to stand and settle.