№26 — Making Schnaps
Once you get fed up with the regular liquor you can buy at the local supermarket, there really is only one solution — make it yourself. Chris, Alex and I tried that last weekend. I should have paid more attention when my grandfather was doing it.
As every alcohol aficionado knows, there are two ways to make your favorite Obstler — fruit schnaps. The first one is the difficult, heavily regulated version. You get fruit, you create a mash with it, you distill it, you pay taxes for it, avoid the poisonous foreshot and voila, your own liquor.
The other, more reasonable, version is considerably easier. I remember the time during summer when I was at my grandparents and my grandfather got a new bag of Zirbenzapfen — the cones of a special type of pine tree. He used to cut them up, put them in a huge jar, cover them with alcohol and let everything sit for a summer. After that he put it in bottles and done. That’s exactly what we aimed to do — just without the pine cones but with fruit.
Once I found relatively fresh fruit at the local market on Saturday — March is really depressing as everything from winter is gone and nothing from spring is ready — we were good to go. Chris provided the containers, Alex provided spiritual guidance and off we went. I felt like beer baron Homer Simpson.
We cut up the fruit, put them in a jar and added some liqour. We made one with pears and wheat liquor, one with apples and wheat liqour, one with nuts and brandy, and the last one is raspberries and rum. You can jugde for yourself which one looks best — I can tell you that mine is not the walnut one.
Right now, it is waiting time. All of these jars need to sit for at least 2–3 weeks and ripen before they are ready to drink. Therefore, I cannot even give a recommendation if our recipes are any good or even drinkable. Still, it is a lot of fun and if everything goes well, I have a birthday present for all of you.
