Old Dutch Liqueur recipees: "Boerenjongens"/"Boerenmeisjes"

[Odin]

"Boerenjongens" (farmer boys) is an old Dutch recipee traditionally used on old style farmer weddings. In the east of the Netherlands they still do this. It is a "preserved raisins & brandy" liqueure that can be drunk, but is also used in deserts.

In order to make it, you need:
250 grams of raisins
100 grams of white granulated sugar
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 liter of brandy (35%)
Water

Take a cup (250 mls) of water, add the sugar and cinnamon and the raisins and bring it to a cook. Let it cook slowly (simmer?) for 10 minutes. Then pour the mixture in a clean glass jar and let it rest for two days. Then at the brandy and let it age for 6 weeks at room temperature. Drink it with the raisins in. Or serve it over vanilla ice, in or on top of cake.

There is also "Boerenmeisjes" (famer girls). I guess the girls got to drink this. The way it is made is the same. The ingredients differ:
250 grams of dried apricots, sliced in half
100 grams of white granulated sugar
the yellow skin (no inside white) of 1 lemon
0.5 liter of brandy (35%)
Water

Again: served with the fruits in them.

The brandy used to help make these liquers is a special brandy. Not brandy with a lot of wine taste, wood, allmost Cognac. On the contrary, it is a brandy redistilled to an allmost neutral. So I guess a fractionated sugar neutral would do fine.

Odin.