Why the liqueur base matters more than the essence

Why the liqueur base matters more than the essence

Two people can buy the same liqueur essence and follow the same instructions and still end up with two drinks that don't taste remotely alike. One'll be thin and a bit sharp while the other's thick and round, and the essence had almost nothing to do with it. It was the base.

The base is the part nobody reads about, because the essence is the bit with the flavour on the label, so it gets all the attention. But the base is doing most of the work on how the drink feels in your mouth, and mouthfeel is most of what people mean when they say a liqueur tastes cheap.

What a liqueur base actually is

Strip a liqueur back and it's three parts. There's the spirit, which carries everything. There's the flavour, which is your essence. And there's the base, which is sugar plus whatever thickener and whitener the blend calls for, and it's the base that decides whether the finished drink sits on your tongue or runs straight off it.

That's why the same essence in two different bases gives you two different drinks. You've changed the body and left the flavour alone.

The three bases and roughly what each is for

Still Spirits label their liqueur bases from A through to C, and they run from light to heavy.

Base A is the light one. Clear, clean, not much body, which is what you want behind a sharp fruit or a citrus essence where extra weight would just get in the way and make it cloying.

Base B sits in the middle and it's the one most people should reach for first. Enough body to give a drink some texture without turning it into a dessert, and it suits the big middle group of essences, which is the spirit-style ones along with most of the fruit liqueurs.

Base C is the heavy, creamy one. That's your coffee liqueurs, your chocolate, your cream styles. Put a citrus essence in it and you'll get something that tastes like a melted lolly, so match it to the flavour rather than assuming heavier is better.

There's also a schnapps base, which is its own thing again and is built for the very clean, very sweet schnapps styles rather than for general use.

The mistakes that come up most

Picking the base by what's on the shelf rather than by the essence. The instructions on the essence bottle name the base it was designed around, and that pairing exists for a reason.

Not dissolving it properly. Base goes in warm rather than hot or cold, and it wants stirring until you can't feel any grain at the bottom of the jug. Undissolved base settles out later and gives you a gritty layer and a drink that tastes weaker than it should, because a good chunk of the sweetness is sitting on the bottom rather than in the drink.

Mixing at the wrong strength. Most of these are built around a spirit at about 40 per cent, and if your base spirit is stronger than that the sugar reads as thinner and the alcohol pushes through harder, so you get something that tastes hot and unbalanced even though you followed the measurements.

Adjusting it to your own taste

You don't have to take the ratio as gospel. If a batch comes out too sweet you can pull the base back next time and lift the spirit, and if it comes out thin you can go the other way, though a heavier base will always soften the flavour a bit as well as thickening it, so expect to nudge the essence up slightly if you do.

Make the change on one variable at a time and write down what you did. Two changes at once and you've learned nothing.

And give it a week before you judge it. A liqueur straight off the stir tastes disjointed because the sugar and the spirit haven't settled into each other yet, and plenty of batches that get poured down the sink on day one would've been fine by day seven.

One thing worth saying plainly

Owning a still is legal here and we sell the gear, but actually distilling spirits at home needs an excise manufacturer licence from the ATO and most people haven't got one, so if that's you then what you're doing is flavouring a base spirit you've bought. That's completely legal, and it's what this whole article assumes anyway.

What you'd want for this

• Still Spirits Liqueur Base A. The light one. Good behind sharp fruit and citrus.
• Still Spirits Liqueur Base B. The middle one, and the safest starting point.
• Still Spirits Liqueur Base C. The heavy creamy one. Built for coffee and chocolate styles.
• Still Spirits Triple Sec Liqueur Essence 50ml. An orange essence to practise the pairing on.
• Still Spirits Schnapps Base 300g. A different animal again, built for schnapps styles.

Did you know we also keep Still Spirits Blue Curacao, Melon Liqueur, Creme de Cacao, Blackberry Schnapps and Cafelua in the shop. They aren't all on the website, so give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what's on the shelf.

The rest of it is in our homebrew range, and Brewhilder, our homebrew helper, will talk you through what suits your setup.

Read next

• What a herbal liqueur essence does and what to mix it with
• How to make melon liqueur and a melon spritz at home
• Cream liqueurs you can make instead of buying

I spent a fair while blaming essences for batches that were really just the wrong base, so learn that one off me rather than off your own sink.

Cheers,

Candeece

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