Benedictine

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Bryan1
Swill Maker
Posts: 475
Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2019 1:55 am
Location: South Oz in the hills

Benedictine

Post by Bryan1 »

G'day Guy's,
This easter weekend like every year thru my wifes place where she volunteers we setup a site for the weekend opening. This is called Sophies Garden and it's in the Adelaide Hills and this is the first year I've helped to setup the stall. I got to meet the owner where the subject got to moonshine where I said if you want a bottle of my AG I'll decant you one so he went and grabbed a bottle for me. No guess's it was a bottle of benedictine where he said he just likes to have a sip and taste the flavour rather than drink a heap to get wasted.

So this got me onto the path to find out how this drink is made where some herbs are listed others are not. Now in one of my old books of recipes there is a recipe where it calls for the oil of....add several drops of this etc.

So for a bit of fun I just put 4 tinctures down with what I thought was 90% neutral instead it was 90% corn off my angel run and I do think it will give a good twist to this liqueur I'm making.

For the first batch
1. Dried Orange peel
2. Crushed Black Pepper
3. Cinnamon
4. Licorice Root

Now on research this group of herbs is listed
Angelica, hyssop, juniper, myrrh, saffron, mace, fir cones, aloe, arnica, lemon balm, tea, thyme, coriander, clove, lemon, vanilla, orange peel, honey, red berries, cinnamon

The saffron is just used at blending time for colour so can be left out, and the honey is used at the final blending time.

In all 4 groups are selected and not named where each are pot stilled then left to age at full strength for months so this first batch be the number one where it will take time to grow the other herbs.

For a bit of fun I'll do a vacuum distilling run to see if I can get some oil out of the tincture as a few drops of oil is enough to flavour a 5 litre batch for a run. I will be using my 2" pot still and do 5 litre batch's and the idea is make enough off the 4 runs to do a final run over 4 plates in my bubbler.

Now Benedictine uses a neutral spirit where Drambuie uses a whisky as the base so I will be doing both ways just to see the the taste differences.

This is a year long project and my first making liqueurs so it's going to be a heap of fun.

Cheers Bryan
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Demy
Master of Distillation
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Joined: Fri Sep 04, 2020 1:45 pm

Re: Benedictine

Post by Demy »

I found this recipe: 1 liter of pure alcohol to take 1 gram of grated nutmeg, 3 grams of vanilla, cloves, chopped and saffron ginger root, as well as 8 grams of angelica root.
It seems that many recipes are circulating but the original one I think is secret.

I think you've already seen this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9n%C3%A9dictine
sweeps
Swill Maker
Posts: 281
Joined: Sun Jun 03, 2012 9:50 am

Re: Benedictine

Post by sweeps »

I've made this recipe a couple of times and been quite pleased with it:

https://books.google.com/books?id=F59CA ... &q&f=false
Bryan1
Swill Maker
Posts: 475
Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2019 1:55 am
Location: South Oz in the hills

Re: Benedictine

Post by Bryan1 »

G'Day Guy's,
Well I put 4 more herbs and spices down for tinctures

5. Ground Cloves
6. Crushed Cardamom
7. Coriander Seeds crushed in my corona mill
8. Nutmeg

This morning I decanted the second batch of the first 4 and the first of the second 4 then decided to make a bottle up of my first liqueur. Put 10ml of each into my 500ml measuring cylinder then used some neutral and watered it down to 40%.

Now first taste was like WOW this is a flavour explosion so decided to do the same again and use some of my single malt whisky. Well the flavour of the herbs still came thru but the smooth feeling of my single malt finished the dram nicely.

Went down to the local bottle shop to get another 6 pack and gave the gal working there a dram. The reply was this is just so nice whats it called where I replied this is only young and it needs time in the bottle to age.

I do need to get some roses to add to the mix and wait for the herbs to grow but I do think this is great start.

The 2 500ml bottles I made today will be left for a few weeks to age so it can mellow then I'm sure this will be a nice drop

Cheers Bryan
Bryan1
Swill Maker
Posts: 475
Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2019 1:55 am
Location: South Oz in the hills

Re: Benedictine

Post by Bryan1 »

G'Day Guy's,
Well as I had a glass still I bought of fleabay it was time to set it up and put each of those herbs and fruits thru, I do know the pundits will say don't go over 40% in a boiler but I did go over quite that 40% quite a bit. I added 345ml of water to make the litre and gave it a run with my orange tincture first. Man the fragrance coming off the still was over powering and the D.P. was like a burst of orange after a very smooth swallow. Now off the litre in the one litre flask I got 700ml at 80% then put the rest through.

The glass ware after the condensor was pretty hot so I went and bought a Graham condensor and I'm getting new adaptor made so off my short still head it will point straight down so the Graham condensor can work to it's full potential.

So for me for making that nice drop it's going be make a tincture first then put it thru the glass still a litre at a time then when I have enough I'll temper it to 40$ and use my 2" potstill and 5 litre boiler.

Now what I found interesting in using this glass still the temp will shoot up to 78C then start producing and by the time it's hit 83C the run is over and although 90% neutral was used the tails smell was present. As the glass was that hot I did lose some vapour and when I went in to my scientific store the guy said the wineries had the same problems so they used an ice bath. He did say by using a Graham condensor is a totally differnt option nbot visited before so when I do get this new part blown by his glass maker he does want to know the results and if I am successful write a paper on it. As many of his customers will be interested in my findings.

Cheers Bryan
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