Homemade Cointreau

Kevie192

Hi all,

Looking for a recipe/method for making homemade cointreau to make some for the MIL as a xmas gift. Done a few searches and can't find anything on here.

Any ideas or links you can point me to would be great!

Thanks

Kevin

ditsykitchen

I'd love to know too, as it's pretty expensive stuff!

ditsykitchen

Did you search for cointreau or triple sec? Cointreau is just the brand name.

A search for homemade triple sec returned:
http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2012/03/diy-orange-liqueur-homemade-triple-sec-curacao-for-cocktails-recipe.html

Battleaxe44

http://easydoesitrecipes.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/home-made-cointreau.html

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2012/03/diy-orange-liqueur-homemade-triple-sec-curacao-for-cocktails-recipe.html

ORANGE LIQUEUR (Cointreau style)
Take a wide topped jar big enough to take a large orange easily through the opening. A 2 litre mayonnaise jar is ideal. Pour in half a litre of alcohol. Now comes the fun part. Take a ripe, perfumed orange and thread a string through the middle of it. Hold the string by both ends and lower the orange into the jar until it is about 1/2 an inch above the alcohol. Now put the lid on the jar trapping the string so that the orange remains suspended. Put the jar away for 21 days. Now measure out a half a litre of water and warm it enough to dissolve 200 grammes of sugar in it. Add this to your flavoured alcohol and you have Cointreau.
OTHER LIQUEURS
Most liqueurs are not made like the Cointreau, they are made by infusing the alcohol with the desired flavour. Here are two made this way.
LIMONCELLO (Lemon liqueur)
Take the rind from six large, well-washed lemons - avoid the bitter pith. Put it into a jar and cover it with 1/2 a litre of alcohol, or if no alcohol is available, the vodka or poteen. Give the jar a shake every day for 10 days. When the time is up, dissolve 200 grammes of sugar into 1/2 a litre of water (or if using vodka into as little water as possible) and add it to the strained alcohol. Bottle it, and it can be drunk once chilled, but it will improve enormously in flavour over a couple of months.
Coffee Liqueur.
Simple, quick and ready to drink immediately although like the others is does improve with bottle age. Make 1/2 litre of strong black real coffee and dissolve 200 grammes of sugar into it. Add 1/2 a litre of alcohol, shake well and refrigerate.

building_with_lego

I'm not sure about Cointreau but if you split a stick of lemongrass and add it to your limoncello it tastes amazing

Kevie192

Thanks for the links... I don't really want to use dried peel and the mix of vodka and brandy sounds wrong :S

All the other recipes I've found use pure alcohol or 95% alcohol and I'm not even sure where I'd get that in the UK ?

Kevin

ditsykitchen

Kevie192 wrote: »

Thanks for the links... I don't really want to use dried peel and the mix of vodka and brandy sounds wrong :S

All the other recipes I've found use pure alcohol or 95% alcohol and I'm not even sure where I'd get that in the UK ?

Kevin

Do you mean 95% proof? That would be pure ethanol. :eek:

midnight_express

Where can you buy the alcohol ?

ditsykitchen

From the small description they're willing to give of what it's made from it seems to be 40% clear alcohol flavoured with orange oil. So, essentially vodka (or similar) infused with orange peel.

Kevie192

Potentially, yes, but if you use vodka to start with and then dilute with a sugar syrup as most recipes suggest you end up with a liquor which is significantly weaker than the 40% ABV of real Cointreau...

Gigervamp

I don't remember Cointreau being sweet. Maybe if you just infused orange in vodka and missed out the sugar syrup?