Bilberry Rum Liqueur

INGREDIENTS:
- 80/120 ml Dried Bilberries
- 5 Dried Rose Buds
- 10 ml Dried Butterfly Pea Flowers

- 400 ml White Overproof Jamaican Rum
(Wray & Nephew White Overproof Rum 63%)
- 100/150 ml Simple Syrup

PREPARATION:

• Combine the botanicals and berries in an airtight container.
• Pour overproof rum, mix the ingredients together and seal the container.
• Keep in a dark place for at least a month (your liquor cabinet will do perfectly).
• Gently shake the container once every day to stir things up and help rum infuse.
• After one month, strain the solids out and, optionally, run the liquid through a coffee filter.
• Mix the infused rum with simple syrup in a bottle.
• Store in a dark cabinet or preferably in a fridge.

NOTE:
I used my jigger to measure quantities of dried bilberries in milliliters instead of grams. I did that primarily because it barely registered on a normal kitchen scale. So, unless you have a highly accurate set of scales intended for weighing small quantities, just use your jigger. Simply fill it up with bilberries and give it a gentle press, to make sure you have reached the maximum capacity.

This liqueur came about rather unexpectedly. I have long had an idea to make a bilberry liqueur. It is a very popular berry back home, much more than blueberry, a true summer staple. I guess it is because bilberries have so much more taste than any cultivated blueberry I have ever eaten. If you never had a bilberry I highly recommend trying. Now, back to the story.

I was always missing something to make the liqueur, be it actual bilberries or vodka to infuse it. I have finally got the hold of some dried bilberries to make the infusion whenever, but then 50% abv vodka disappeared from the stores in that particular month. I was getting rather inpatient and then noticed a bottle of white overproof Jamaican rum and thought to myself: “Why not, that should work”. So, I mixed some dried bilberries added a few rosebuds for the aroma and sealed it in a container for a month. Result was stunning, much better than I could ever imagine. Sweet, tangy notes of bilberries mixed with funky Jamaican rum and slightly hidden rose aroma. Amazing colour: dark purple of the bilberries mixed with a blueish hue of the Butterfly Pea Flowers, should result in great looking cocktails. So, now I’m off to experiment and create some recipes for this particular home-made liqueur.