Sugar

Seeing as we’ve already bought our base booze, we won’t be needing sugar to convert into alcohol – it’s used purely to sweeten the finished drink.

When and how to add your sugar is the source of much debate, with some adding theirs at the start of the process while others make a sugar syrup that is added prior to bottling.

With fruit-based spirits, we usually add our sugar at the start of the process – it seems to make sense that all of the ingredients mellow together for the maximum length of time and, with fruit liqueurs, you’ll have the bonus of sweet preserved fruit to play with once you’ve bottled the booze (see individual recipes for ideas). Some purists will argue that adding sugar upfront lessens the alcohol’s ability to extract flavour, but we suspect that these benefits are minimal.