Make.do.grow

 Make.Do.Grow is the name of a Youtube channel, well worth watching.  A young english couple bought a few acres in Portugal.  The work they have done and are still doing, by themselves, is incredible.  And their videos are well edited and very clearly and humourously narrated.  Well worth a watch.

'Follow our journey of restoring and rejuvenating an old, neglected, small farm estate in central Portugal. Join us as we make, do and grow: from no-dig gardening to raising animals, building infrastructure, regenerating the land, preserving the harvests and cooking up a storm'

While watching their videos I came across one on their liqueur making.  They make alcohol out of the fruit growing on the land and the recipes are so simple anyone could/can do the same.  They steep the fruit in spirits and make a simple sugar syrup, one part water, one part sugar.  Fruit and booze and syrup.  And the booze they use is the Portuguese fire water, aguardiente, which sounded very much like our greek raki.  

I made limoncello months ago with raki but it was barely drinkable.  The raki has a very strong taste and it seemed to over power the lemon and the sugar, even though I had used plenty of lemon peel.  Now I had watched their process I decided it was time to tweek my own limoncello and hopefully make it more pleasant.

So I added about a litre of sugar syrup and made one bottle into two almost full bottles.  So now if it isn't drinkable I've got twice the amount.  Glory me!

I've got a shot glass in front of me now, having just spilled the first one over the floor.  It took quite an effort to clean up all the sticky, sugary stuff.  I tasted it when I did the tweeking, didn't like it, but maybe a couple of weeks in the bottle has improved it.  It smells like wallpaper paste.  That's a good start?

Here goes. No.  It's sweet and drinkable but no way would I call it limoncello.  I can see it being used to flavour cakes and trifles for many years to come.  Unless I can fob it off onto someone else.  

It's the raki.  It would have been ok I think if I had used vodka but we don't have spare vodka hanging around the house.  I've got a bottle of red wine in the fridge.  I'll make some rose pelargonium liqueur.  That's always a winner.  Red wine, pelargonium leaves and flowers, sugar and a bit of patience.

Meantime I'll just finish off this shot glass and maybe pour another just to make sure I'm not mistaken.