Buddhacello Batch 2019

Making infused liqueurs is both easy and fun. Typically, it just takes some patience to create something special from a bottle of plain neutral spirits, like grain alcohol or vodka. For example, for the Third Annual Chocolate Dinner last February, I couldn’t decide which chocolate liqueur to make, so I made two different ones. One involved mixing a decent vodka with a simple syrup and cocoa powder and storing in the refrigerator until use; the other was a little more labor intensive, as it required mixing the vodka with cacao nibs, infusing for about a week, adding a simple syrup, infusing for another day, and then straining off the cacao nibs. I’ve also made orange liqueurs for my dinner parties from two different recipes, both of which basically involved some type of infusion and then mixing with some type of sugar syrup. But my favorite infused liqueur to make is the Buddhacello.

The Buddha Hand fruit arrived early this year! Last year, I didn’t find my Buddha Hand until almost mid-December, when Little Z and I were doing the shopping for the Holiday Dessert Party at the fancy grocery store two towns over. However, this year I found myself in the fancy grocery store at the end of November and was delighted to discover the Buddha Hand tucked in behind the grapefruit. Naturally, I touched them all and selected the gnarliest one with the most peel to come home with me.

The most challenging aspect of making Buddhacello is acquiring the Buddha Hand fruit. Once that is accomplished, making the liqueur is just a matter of soaking the fruit in a neutral spirit and then mixing the infused alcohol with sugar syrup. For my last batch, I soaked the entire fruit in a bottle of grain alcohol and then used an excessive amount of sugar syrup to bring down the proof of the finished liqueur. And it turned out really well!

Of course, I didn’t remember any of that when I was staring at the wall of vodka at the small local liquor store. What I did stick in my mind was using a bottle of gluten free vodka for one of my infused alcohol projects last year so that my gluten free friend could enjoy the final product. So I scoured the wall for a bottle of specially labelled gluten free vodka, even though that was significantly lower proof than the grain alcohol that I typically use for Buddhacello. In absence of finding that, I settled on a bottle of medium quality vodka, figuring that the better quality input would make a better quality output.

When I got home with the bottle of vodka, I poured it over the Buddha Hand fruit in my plastic pitcher and set it aside in the cool forgettable place. Since I found a few fingers in another bottle of vodka at the forefront of my fabulous liquor cabinet, I added that to the mix as well - just so I could make a little extra room in the cabinet. It was at that point that I decided to check into what I had done last year. By doing that, I learned that I would have to extend the soaking time for this batch because I was using vodka instead of grain alcohol.

Since I didn’t write down when I actually started my infusion, I had to estimate when it was ready to be strained by its color and smell. According to my adapted recipe, the recommended soaking time was two weeks for grated peel and two months for the whole fruit. However, when I used whole fruit and grain alcohol last year, I only soaked the fruit for about four weeks because I believed that fruit flavor would infuse faster in the higher proof of the grain alcohol. This time when I checked my infused liquor at the four week mark, it smelled right - a beautiful citrusy floral aroma unique to the Buddha Hand fruit. However, when compared to the 2018 bottle, the color was way too pale. So I let it sit for another two weeks before I opened the container to take another sample. The week six infusion smelled even better than it did at week four! And the color seemed a lot closer to the 2018 batch. Therefore, I decided that it was time to finish the project.

Figuring out how much sugar syrup I needed was the first step in finishing the project. So I checked what I did last year: I used approximately six cups of sugar syrup for a 750ml bottle of 190-proof grain alcohol. This year, after removing the Buddha Hand from the pitcher, I was left with about 40 ounces of 80-proof vodka. Because I had started with a “safe” proof of alcohol, I wasn’t all that concerned about lowering the proof of the final product. My sole concern was with appropriately sweetening the liqueur. Therefore, I decided to start with two cups of water and two cups of white sugar, which should make three or four cups of sugar syrup. Since that would be between 24 ounces and 32 ounces, I figured that it should be enough to cut the proof in half if I really wanted to go that low. I simmered the water and sugar together just long enough for the sugar to dissolve and the liquid to clear. Then I set it aside to cool.

While the sugar syrup was cooling, I set about sterilizing the jars that were going to contain the final product. Rather than boiling them in my pot in batches for five minutes each, I lined up the ten jars on my counter, filled each with boiling water, and let them sit undisturbed for at least five minutes.

The experiments started after the syrup cooled. Since the infused liquor was in a plastic pitcher with volume markings along the side, I could get fairly mathematical about the process. I planned to start by adding approximately 20 ounces of sugar syrup to the liquor, which would increase the volume by about one-third, and then tasting for sweetness. If it wasn’t sweet enough, I planned to add more sugar syrup in eight ounce increments until I was happy with it. As always, I had a bottle of homemade sugar syrup ready to go in the refrigerator if I needed more than what I had just made.

Because my pitcher only had eight ounce markings on it, I started with an addition of 16 ounces of sugar syrup. That sample smelled perfect, but tasted both alcoholic and mysteriously bitter. So I stuck with the plan, and only added eight ounces of sugar syrup, which finished the batch that I had just made. Again, the sample smelled perfect. The alcoholic taste had been somewhat tamed, as had the mysterious bitterness. Since I wasn’t sure whether I liked it, I took a small sample of the 2018 batch. That definitely felt like sugar syrup in my mouth! However, it too had a slight alcoholic and slight bitter taste to it. Maybe the basil pesto that I had for lunch was interfering with my taste? I didn’t know how likely that was, but I did know that I didn’t want this new batch to have that sugar syrup mouthfeel. Therefore, I decided to stop where I was, fill my glass jars, and set them aside for a few days to mellow.

Of course, there was a little bit of the Buddhacello left over in the pitcher after I had filled all the jars. Seeing that it was well after noon, I poured the leftover Buddhacello into a flute and topped it with the prosecco that was leftover from my recent experiments with my homemade gin cocktails. The new batch mixed flawlessly, lending its distinctive Buddhacello scent to the drink. Best of all, there was no hint of that mysterious bitterness that had been bothering me.

The Verdict

Since the two key ingredients in Buddhacello are Buddha Hand fruit and patience, I can only make it once a year - which is just infrequent enough for me to have to “rediscover” the process every year. Fortunately, I have yet to get bored with this particular experiment, especially since I’ve cultivated some Buddhacello aficionados among my family and friends. Best of all, now that Buddhacello Batch 2019 has been laid to rest, I can start researching Chocolate Chinese New Year!