Using a potato peeler, peel the coloured bit of the mandarin peels off trying to avoid as much of the bitter white pith as possible.

Mandarin Cocktails to Add Sweetness to Your Sips 11 Mandarin Cocktails to Add Sweetness to Your Sips

Mandarin Liqueur or Mandarincello is a very simple spirit made by the infusion of mandarinsin neutral alcohol. The quality comes entirely from the quality of the fruit, as each variety has its own distinct taste. Combine the peels with the vodka in the jar and place it in a dark cupboard for at least a couple of weeks but longer if possible. A couple of months might be best. Shaking the jar once a day will help disperse the flavour from the peel into the liquor. At this point if you do not want to make the candied mandarin peels, you extract the juice and just cook the syrup for ten minutes. You then mix the syrup with the leftover alcohol). I filled a big glass jar with mandarins, poked them and then poured the alcohol on top to cover them. I stored it in the cupboard and let them steep in the alcohol, for 18 days. The more you leave them, the better. If I was not in a hurry to finish the drink, I may have left it more but the result shows that they were more than enough.

Don't throw out the peels

As nothinggoeswasted in my kitchen, I thought of a way to make good use of them, so I made these delicious and addictive mandarin candied peels, which have a mild, boozy aftertaste.

Mandarine Napoléon Mandarine Napoléon

I remembered seeing this procedure last year on television and searched my cooking notebooks to see if I had recorded it.I had listed the ingredients but the notes on the procedure were a bit vague so I decided to see more recipes on the internet and get everything clear before proceeding. There are many ways to make liqueurs but this time I made the mandarin liqueur using the whole fruit. This is the right time to prepare the mandarin liqueur because late mandarins have a thin skin and almost no white part and therefore are perfect for this recipe. Can you imagine the satisfaction of serving your homemade liqueur to your guests? The recipe for mandarin liqueur Place all ingredients except for lemon juice in a saucepan and boil for 5 minutes. Remove from heat, add lemon juice and discard lemon peel. Could I Leave You from the Sondheim musical Follies, performed here by Dee Hoty for My Favourite Broadway: The Leading Ladies in 1998, a highly comforting yet exhilarating concert that I revisit frequently. This is such a good song in anyone’s hands, but Hoty has precisely the steel and elegance and control that makes it really shine.Greeks are very hospitable people and when you are friends with them whenever the occasion arises they will send you some of their home made or home produced products. We also have some friends from Crete and during the past years my eldest son, who is a student, has been working during the summer time in Cretan hotels. Whenever he used to come home on his days off, for a couple of days friends would send a bottle of their famous tsikoudia. Tsikoudia is their local drink made by distilling the leftover pomace after making wine. Whoever has been to Crete before knows that wherever you go, you will be offered a free drink of tsikoudia. So I have many bottles of tsikoudia from Crete and my relatives from Cyprus have also been sending me the Cypriot equivalent which is called Zivania. Add the alcohol, close tightly with the lid and place the jar in a cupboard and let them steep for 18 – 30 days. For my liqueur I used the peel of four oranges which I put them in a coffee/tea jar, which had a filter on the top, filled it with tsikoudia and pressed the filter down so that the peels would submerge into the liquor.