Dragonfruit Cordial

This turned out pretty well, with a lot of good feedback. My brother used it to make dragonfruit white russians, hah!

I wanted to make a dragonfruit cordial and researched it quite a bit. Several people tried and said the fruit has a weak flavor, like watermelon, and it's very difficult to get a good product with actual fruit. I found a Dragonfruit extract from One on One Flavors and it seems great. I got small samplers of two other flavors, which seem more for vaping; I have a hard time distinguishing their categories online, but the target was definitely what I wanted.

Modified from the Watermelon recipe in Cordials from your Kitchen, I had to add a ton more flavoring than originally expected:

5 teaspoons dragonfruit flavoring extract
1 cup light corn syrup
1 cup water
1 1/2 cups vodka

As usual, I used 80-proof Svedka rather than 100-proof as the book calls for. I used Meijer brand generic corn syrup (with vanilla! Isn't that redundant?). The original recipe called for 1 1/2 teaspoons. I tried it, then went up to 3. It was still weak so I went to 5. It finally seemed robust enough.

Usage:
Potion of Archery +3
Mix some of this with country time lemonade, and holy cow is it delicious. Learned this on a fluke on the 4th of July.

Dreamsicle Cordial

This one was an odd experiment. I'm not entirely sure yet if I have it right, this may need some tweaks.

1 1/2 cups white table sugar
1 cup water
1 teaspoon orange flavoring (Bakto)
1 teaspoon vanilla flavoring (Bakto)
1 1/2 cups vodka

I JUST mixed this and took a sip after 20 minutes, and the sugar comes through the most. I do get both the vanilla and the orange flavors, but I think they need to be stronger. I may add more extracts in a day or two if the balance still feels wrong.

This is a modified version of "Quick and Easy Orange" cordial from Cordials in your Kitchen.

Mugwort tincture

I didn't measure! Shocked and surprised. Packed a healthy amount of dried mugwort into a mason jar and filled it 3-4" with vodka. It steeped for a very long time, possibly too long. After straining I had 3/4c of extract. Added 6 tablespoons of karo corn syrup for sweetness and body

Chai, ver 2

Followed the same recipe as earlier, but took away 1/2c of vodka and added 1/2c of irish cream. Skipped St Brendans, used Bailey's vanilla cinnamon.

Day 2, its much smoother than the original recipe, this one will be dangerous.

Cordial: Spruce/Vodka [In Progress]

I like pine. REALLY, really like pine. I decided I want to make an evergreen-flavored cordial. I'm reasonable, and I realize this may become nasty, so my backup plan is to mix it with a fruit-flavor (like orange). I'm winging this, and it's in progress, but currently I have:

1 750 ml bottle of Luksusowa potato vodka
3/4 oz. spruce essence, typically for making Christmas beers.

I have not sweetened it yet...

Edit 6/5/15: Sweetened it. I like it, but it has a definite... soap? taste. It reminds me of a specific product but I can't figure out which one. I like it, but Im thinking of adding some orange or other citrus to make it palatable to others.

Cordial: Chai

This is a scratch-made recipe, with kind assistance from Jael ben Ari. A friend made a chai cordial and I've been wanting to play with tea-based recipes, so I decided to give one a try too:

2 cups Tazo chai mix (black tea based)
2 cups vodka (I used Svedka since I have a demijohn of it at this point)
Simple syrup of 1 cup and 1 cup, just until clear.
1 cup Saint Brendan's Irish Cream (Thank you Jael!)

I initially mixed the Tazo and Vodka and sampled it. It was definitely too strong, so I started with the 1c/1c simple syrup. At that point I felt like it might mellow out and be ok, but it was still strong. After thinking about it for half an hour, I mentioned to Oswyn and Jael that I felt like it was missing a dairy component, since the Tazo mix was originally supposed to be mixed with milk. But what? Almond/soy milk? Non-dairy creamer? What would hold at room temperature. Jael suggested irish cream, potentially Bailey's Vanilla Cinnamon (which sounds like a heck of a combination to go with chai!). I have a bottle of Saint Brendan's, however, as I generally prefer it to Baileys. A cup of that in the mix really seems to balance it out where I want! First I took a small bit of the tazo/vodka and poured it into a bit of the cream to make sure it wouldn't curdle or have another reaction. After a moment I figured it was safe and poured it into the cordial jar.

Let's see how it goes in a month or two. I may need to tweak the syrup and/or the irish cream.

Cordial: Banana Nut Bread (testing)

I'm going to make a banana and a walnut cordial and blend them to try and achieve banana nut bread.

Banana:
1 and 1/2c sugar
3/4c water
1tea vanilla
3c alcohol
2 ripe bananas, peeled and mashed

Mix all ingredients and stir/shake every day for 3-4 days. Strain. Age a month.


Walnut:
1 c toasted walnuts
Simple Syrup of 1c and 1c
1/2 c honey
1tea. pure vanilla extract
1/2c brandy

Steep walnuts in liquor for 1 month. Then prepare simple syrup and honey. Once cooled to 'warm' add the syrup and vanilla.

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4/13/15 edit: I've strained them today. I used a scientific pipette to take 2ml of walnut and 6ml of banana to guess at a proportion. I added a little corn syrup for my imprecise test. It's drinkable, but I think a proper syrup and some vanilla will help. The two jars are currently without vanilla or sweeteners at all