Kümmel

[Moley]

I have gradually been drinking my way through a variety of miniature bottles which I used to collect.

One that I had never tried before was Kümmel - and I liked it, so I googled a recipe.

If you like sweet liqueurs and aniseedy drinks, you might like it too.

3 cups Vodka
2 cups Sugar
1 cup Water
2 tablespoons crushed Caraway seed
1 tablespoon crushed Fennel seed
1.5 teaspoons ground Cumin.

Combine caraway, fennel, cumin and vodka in a jar, cover tightly and allow to steep for 2 weeks in a cool, dark place. Shake jar occasionally. When steeping period is complete, strain and filter the liquid. I pushed a plug of cotton wool quite firmly down a funnel and allowed it to slowly drip through that.

Combine sugar and water in a heavy saucepan and bring to the boil over a medium heat. Reduce heat and simmer until sugar has completely dissolved. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature. I stood the saucepan in a bowl of cold water for 5 minutes and stirred it occasionally.

Combine sugar syrup with the filtered vodka mixture. Pour into bottles and cap tightly. Let it age for at least 1 month before serving

Further searching told me that a Cup (liquid) is 250ml and that a Cup of white sugar is 225g., so that recipe would be 750ml vodka, 450g sugar and 250ml water.

Well the drink I tried was very sweet indeed but I thought that sounded like way too much sugar and water.

I halved the recipe and used 375ml vodka, 1 tbsp caraway, 1/2 tbsp fennel and 3/4 tsp cumin.
After 2 weeks I boiled 150g sugar in 75ml water, which seemed quite sufficient.

I've got a full scale batch ready for filtering now, so if there's any left I will try to remember to bring it along to TST.

Only tried Kummel once and I did like it. It's a much nicer drink compared to the green or yellow herb flavoured liqueurs more commonly seen, not as sweet and a cleaner herb character.

[Joe1002]

I enjoy a Kummel, thanks for the recipe

Sounds similar to the pastis recipe I did, with a few obvious changes, sounds worth a go, cheers for the recipe.

[Stupid question]
Does 150g of sugar dissolved in 75ml of water equal about 75ml of sugar solution? [/Stupid question]

Just thinking of containers.

[Moley]

Bumping another old one because I've had a bottle steeping for a fortnight and couldn't remember how much sugar syrup to make, and then I saw this:

[Stupid question]
Does 150g of sugar dissolved in 75ml of water equal about 75ml of sugar solution? [/Stupid question]

I would think that would make 150ml of syrup.

A pound of sugar dissolved in half a pint of water makes a pint of syrup, but I'm not sure how it works in metric.


Probably just a bit too late to have any relevance for Ed (sorry) but could be useful for others.

Probably just a bit too late to have any relevance for Ed (sorry) but could be useful for others.

Don't worry Moley, as with the vast majority of my plans life got in the way. I can do this with the vodka that I'm not going to use for limoncello now that I've learnt I can buy grain alcohol from my friendly local polish shop.

Thanks for the recipe