The Herb Bag Experiment

As well as sounding like a good name for a 70's prog band, The Herb Bag Experiment is one of my more improvised attempts at making a liqueur.

I'm a big fan of herby digestives (stop thinking of biscuits) like Amaro Averna and (like Michael Caine's Alfred) Fernet Branca and fancied making one of my own. I saw a recipe in my reliable source book - Housewives' Liqueurs (itself a product of the 70's) - for '30 Erbe': A digestivo/amaro that calls for 30 different herbs in various proportions. OK, I thought, probably possible if we lived in the Dolomites or Lessinia, but the foraging opportunities are more limited down here in the flat land of tobacco, fruit trees and reproduction furniture. So I left it at that.

One evening I was rooting through the cupboard for a teabag and an idea came to me: Tisane are very popular in Italy. You can find a remarkable range of infusions in the supermarket, at least as many as in the UK. And most of the bags contain herbs in various combinations - the majority of which matched those called for in the recipe. What if I adapted the recipe and tried to infuse the alcohol with a few herby teabags? Worth a try.

So I pulled out some boxes, selected a handful of bags that contained a heady mix of various flora and set to fiddling in the lab.

Here's the final recipe:

The Herb Bag Experiment
makes 750ml

Selection of herb infusion (tisana) bags
250ml 95º alcohol
500ml Vermouth Bianco
150ml sugar
Grated peel 1 lemon

Macerate the bags and lemon peel in the alcohol for 15 days, shaking daily
Filter the alcohol, combine with the vermouth and sugar and shake vigourously
Leave for 1 month, shaking daily
Filter, bottle and leave for at least 5 months before serving

Here are the bags I used back in May:
POMPADOUR 6 ERBE - Anice, Liquirizia, Finocchio, Timo, Timo Serpillo, Salvia
POMPADOUR DEPURATIVA - Tarassaco, Fiori Di Camomilla, Curcuma, Finocchio
GLÜHFIX - Bucce d'arancia, Cannella, Chiodi di garofano
LIBERO MONDO TISANA BUONA NOTTE - Camomilla, Verbena odorosa, Maggiorana, Melissa

So the mix included aniseed, liquorice, fennel seed, thyme, sage, dandelion, camomile, cumin, dried orange peel, cinnamon, cloves (the Glühfix bag was a shortcut to glüwein that I found in the back of the cupboard), lemon verbena, marjoram and lemon balm. Not bad!

I assumed the vermouth would add more herbinesss and sweetness, so I dropped the amount of sugar from the original recipe.

The Herb Bag Experiment - ready for tasting

The 5 months maturing in the bottle were up a couple of weeks ago, so we popped it open and had a taste… And it was really good! Herby, light and just sweet enough. I preferred it sloshed around an ice cube and thought it came across like a more benign version of Benedictine. I'd probably drop the amount of vermouth next time as it was a little too present in the final flavour for my taste, but the bottle didn't last long. Good sign.

Salute!