Now I know why its called Triple Sec!

[Sbeghan]

The name triple sec apparently refers to the liqueur being triple distilled. As I just found out, distilling it multiple times improves it greatly.

My reading told me that this is a liqueur made by steeping dried orange peels in neutral alcohol and then distilling three times, sometimes aging with oak, and adding sugar (usually 1/3 sugar W/V), and the ABV ranges from 20-40%

So I take 1 gallon 40% neutral spirits and an empty gallon jar and fill the empty jar up halfway. I buy a 3# bag of navel oranges, a 3# bag of tangerines, and some other assorted citrus fruits (1 grapefruit, a lime, some smaller seeded oranges). Every time I eat one of them I chuck the peel into the empty jar and add enough neutral spirits to cover. Tonight I filled up the jar with peels and decided that the time was nigh and I fired up the pot still, dumping the whole jar into it, including pickled peels (wanted to get all the alcohol that was in the piths out of them!). I took about 2/3 gallon of distillate, even after all the alcohol left it since it was still pulling essential oils out of the peels. In the end I had an almost milky white distillate with oils floating on top. The taste wasn't quite what I wanted, but I intended to redistill anyway. The next two runs I cut off the tails when I decided that I didn't like the flavour (didn't lose much alcohol that way). By the third run the smell and flavor had greatly improved and it was clear.

In the gallon jar I added 1/3 of a gallon of sugar by volume and poured the distillate over it, added some heavy toast oak chip extract (equivalent to ~10g of oak chips), and topped off with water.

I like what I have so far, the aroma is amazing, like fresh oranges, but not. Its more complex than just oranges and orange soda. I could probably double the oak extract without a problem, but I want to let it age and mellow first to figure out what I have on hand. I also want to get some soda water and mix it with that on the rocks.

PS, the aftertaste is strongly remniscent of roses. Orange roses. Ironically its way better than the aftertaste of my first attempt at rose vodka.