For the last liqueur in our holiday homemade liqueur series we’ll be looking at homemade Creme de Menthe. Creme de Menthe is a sweet minty liqueur with a fancy French name that translates to “Mint Cream”. Kind of strange, I know, as Creme de Menthe isn’t creamy and instead has a simple syrup as its base.
This version uses peppermint extract as a quick way to add the mint flavor to the mixture. Recipes can be found that use mint leaves as a way to infuse the mint flavor into the alcohol which I’m sure is tasty too, but you need more time and patience. This version is a little speedier.
This recipe also uses a few drops of food coloring to give the mixture the green color of classic Creme de Menthe. This makes the mixture pretty in a glass bottle for gift giving and helps add a green color to the drinks or recipes to which the Creme de Menthe is added to give the message “Hey, this is minty!”. I found 4 drops of the food coloring gave the green color that I liked, but I always like to give the reminder to add food coloring slowly and see how you’re liking the results. You can always add a little more color, but you can’t take it back out!
Here’s how to do it:
Homemade Creme de Menthe
Ingredients:
- 1 cup Water
- 1 cup Sugar
- 1/3 cup Vodka
- 1 teaspoon Peppermint Extract
- 4 drops Green Food Coloring
Make a simple syrup by combining the water and sugar in a small saucepan and heating for a few minutes on the stove until the the sugar is dissolved. Remove from the heat and let cool completely.
Once the sugar/water mixture has cooled, add the vodka and the peppermint extract. Finally you can add a few drops of green food coloring to give it the same green color as the store bought version. You’ll want your mixture in some kind of clear glass jar, bottle, or bowl for this step so you can clearly see the color of your mixture. I found 4 drops of food coloring to be about right.
My favorite way to use Creme de Menthe is to drizzle it over vanilla ice cream, but in the next post we’ll look at a couple more ways to use your homemade Creme de Menthe including how to turn your ordinary brownies into Creme de menthe brownies, and how to make a Grasshopper cocktail. Stay tuned!
Recipes here: 3 Ways to Use Creme de Menthe
You may also like to check out the other recipes in this series:
3 Cocktails to make with Homemade Kahlua
How to make a Mudslide Dessert Drink using Homemade Baileys
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