ITucian Dragomir, producer of organic vegetables from Brașov, explains the correct parities of fruit and sugar to make the best liqueurs.
"Cherry, cherry, raspberry, nutty, tanned, hazelnut, pickled, apricot, corked, tender, horned, dudated, sour, ruzincata (brownish), strawberry....
There is almost no fruit that grows in Romania that cannot be transformed with the help of sugar and alcohol into a delicious liqueur.
These alcoholic beverages entered the consumption of Romanians relatively recently, only around the 19th century with the popularization of sugar. It arrived at the beginning of the 18th century as a luxury product and it took almost another century and an industrial revolution to make it a product intended for all social strata.
The working method is generally the same for all fruits, the difference is made by the amount of sugar and the maceration times of it with the fruits:
Bitter-astringent fruits, horns, walnuts and green hazelnuts require the most sugar, 1 to 1, long maceration time (until the sugar with which the fruits were mixed melts completely).
Sweet fruits, strawberries, apricots, mulberries, cantaloupe between one third and one half of the amount of fruit must be sugar. If the amount is less there is a very high risk that the fruit will enter fermentation and thus become unsuitable for the product final. These fruits macerate the fastest for 2-3 days,
Semi-sweet fruits, blueberries, strawberries, bitter cherries, gooseberries, etc. they need a quantity of sugar that must exceed half to two thirds of the amount of fruit, the average maceration time of about 4-7 days.
After the sugar has completely disappeared from the fermentation, brandy/palinca, vodka or refined alcohol diluted with water is added and left for at least one month "on the ros"!
In recent years I have seen, tasted and even made a lot of liqueurs made according to this recipe that combine several of the above fruits but also aromatic plants or fruits or elder flowers. It has already been proven that Romanians are very inventive when it comes to gastronomy and when some drinks are added to the equation, the sky is practically the limit for inventiveness!"
Photo © Gil Singer | Dreamstime.com
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