Welp, my Uncle Mac liked to say "You always go to school on the first one". The Lime Bitters is finished and what we have is a solid gelatinous block of bittersweet citrusy goodness. Following the "Regans' Orange Bitters No.6" recipe; I separated the booze from the botanicals, boiled & steeped the solids in water, and left that to soak. The final step is to combine the two steeps and sweeten. The bitter alcohol portion was wonderful - pure lime bitters excitement. The bitter water portion was a little challenging - weird, semi-solid, and slimy. It passed the "Looks OK & tastes OK test" so I proceeded to finish. Pint of bitter lime rum, pint of runny slightly gelatinous goo, and a cup of invert sugar syrup hardening in a small non-stick saucepan - check! Got it mixed together, glopped into an empty fifth bottle, and into the fridge. Fixed us a round of vodka tonics with lime bitters as taste test and the result is very good. This batch of lime bitters doesn't score very high on appearance but the flavor is exactly what I had in mind; an herbal spiciness, resinous bitterness, and a bright lime citrus flavor on top of it all. Next time I'll forgo the extra water steep, sweeten that second pint of water, and expect a slightly milder bitters. Now on to the next batch...
Update: So after a little sleuthing, we've decided that boiling the botanicals with the fruit for the hot water steep set the pectin in the fruit. And well and truly set it is, I've got a fifth of lime bitters that ain't goin' nowhere.
Beerstock 5060-4
11 years ago
2 comments:
Lime jelly! Yum.
A little pectinase should keep future batches in a liquid state.
Yes, we'll see how the pectinase helps with this batch. In the meantime; another Lime Bitters and batches of Thyme and Rhubarb Bitters!
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