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.