Making your own Coffee Liqueur (Kahlua)

“Coffee smells like freshly ground heaven.”  ~Jessi Lane Adams

Do you love coffee? I do. I love the smell of it … remember it even as a child, I loved the smell of my dad’s coffee.

So yes, I also love coffee liqueur. And I always like the idea of making things that you normally buy at the store. It’s just fun, learning how to make things like this. You don’t have to go buy Kahlua. This is super-easy to make.

“Coffee is the best thing to douse the sunrise with.”  ~Terri Guillemets

Coffee Liqueur

Recipe from New Country Fare: Glorious Liqueurs. 150 Recipes for Spirited Desserts, Drinks and Gifts of Food. (If you are under 21, please skip this recipe.)

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 c. firmly packed brown sugar
• 1 c. white sugar
• 2 c. water
• 1/2 c. instant coffee granules or crystals
• 3 c. vodka
• 1 1/2 T. good quality vanilla extract
• 10 – 15 whole coffee beans

1. In a medium saucepan, combine the brown and granulated sugars with the water. Bring to a boil over medium high heat, stirring occasionally. Lower the heat and simmer for about 5 minutes or until the mixture forms a syrup.
2. Stir the instant coffee granules into the syrup with a whisk until completely dissolved and the coffee syrup is smooth and lump-free. Remove the pan from the heat and let it cool completely.
3. Once the coffee syrup is cool, stir in the vodka and vanilla. Funnel into a half-gallon glass bottle; drop in the coffee beans.
4. Cover tightly and let it mature for at least 2 weeks. If you want to, you can strain out the coffee beans. Or leave them in. Whatever you prefer.

“A cup of coffee – real coffee – home-browned, home ground, home made, that comes to you dark as a hazel-eye, but changes to a golden bronze as you temper it with cream that never cheated, but was real cream from its birth, thick, tenderly yellow, perfectly sweet, neither lumpy nor frothing on the Java: such a cup of coffee is a match for twenty blue devils and will exorcise them all.”

~Henry Ward Beecher