We have three crabapple trees on our property that seem to produce a bumper crop every fall.
When I was a kid I remember picking them and helping my mom make crabapple jelly, but it is one of those fruits that you don’t always have that much use for.
This year I decided to make use of the excess crabapple harvest and make a home liqueur from them.
The crabapples on the tree looked amazing – this variety was a smaller variety than I remember as a kid, but they seemed to have the right slightly bitter crabapple flavor…
It didn’t take very long to pick enough to get started.
I headed back in the house, de-stemmed and washed, then chopped each crabapple in half. I didn’t worry about coring them, as I had read that the core and seeds add to the mixture.
I then placed the halved crabapples in a quart jar until it was nearly full.
I then added two cups of sugar and then filled it to the top with vodka (roughly 3 cups).
I stored the jar on its side, turning once every day for three weeks to help the sugar to dissolve.
After three weeks, I filtered out the fruit and bottled the finished liqueur.
The result is quite amazing – the quintessential bitterness of the crabapple pairs perfectly with the vodka and sugar to make a great after-dinner liqueur.