Beech Leaf Noyau

I must confess I had never heard of this before but when Dee from Greensideup recently posted a picture of a glorious brown liqueur that she had made last year, I was intrigued. I Googled it straight away.

I just happened to glance out the window and notice that lovely lime green beech leaves were beginning to unfurl. I had to find a recipe fast as you need to use young leaves. The recipes were all very vague but that doesn't bother me.

I just gathered up as many leaves as would fit in this lovely Nicholas Mosse jug. It's just over a litre capacity. I then put just the leaves (remove stems) and covered with gin. Seal it up with some cling film and leave for three weeks. 



I admit I left mine longer than three weeks. More like five.

I strained the liquid off into a clean jug and gathered the leaves up and gave them a good squeeze. The recipe I was following was based on using a full 75cl bottle of gin. I had used up ends of bottles but typically forget to measure what I actually used. I guestimated it was half a bottle so I halved the other ingredients.

Make a sugar syrup. If using full bottle of gin it's 225g sugar in 300ml water. Heat and boil for a few minutes. Cool.

Add 200ml brandy to the gin with the cooled sugar syrup. Pour into a clean, sterilised bottle and store.

It says in the recipe it can be drunk neat or as a mixer. I imagine it needs a bit of storage before using it. I intend to experiment with different mixes.

I will keep you posted.