louche - is it reversible?

[dave45]

I was trying to make cointreau subsititute. Grate the zest of 7 small oranges and soak the bits in a bottle of strong spirit for a week.... turning regularly (its like a pretty orange snowglobe!) After a week filter thru a coffee filter.. its a pale orange golden colour.

Trouble was that I'd used 65% spirit... and it came out a bit too strong - orange flavoured rocket fuel

So I diluted it with a mix of water and spirit (about 10%). My beautiful golden stuff immediately "louched" - went cloudy/milky!

I understand that this is to do with the solubility of certain essential oils in the presence of water but can only find references to absinthe and anise on the net. If I understand correctly it may have needed the high strength of alcohol to dissolve the orange oils? Maybe this is all part of the skill of making cointreau!

Does anyone know if this louche reaction is one-way only? or can it be reversed?

It looks odd but tastes better though !

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Tricky. You're quite right about the oils being more soluble in alcohol and what you have done by adding water is to form an emulsion. If you left it long enought the two components would separate into different layers, but this could take years.

I can't guarantee anything, but you might be able to clarify it by warming gently to about 60°C in a closed bottle in the oven. Although the emulsion might reform after cooling, I would expect the globules to be much smaller and the liquid could appear much clearer.

Alternatively (or as well as) you could try mixing in a little clear honey into the drink - this acts like a detergent and breaks the emulsion, but how much you would need I cannot say.

A liqueur is make around here that is very similar but includes sugar and coffee beans in the mix.

[dave45]

Thanks RRE. I forgot to mention that I'd already dissolved a batch of sugar in it, so that might affect the chemistry too.

I might try heating a sample in the microwave this evening :-)

[Green Aura]

No idea about louche etc but I do know essential oils - if you heat it they will come off first and you'll be left with an orange coloured not very orangey liqueur whether it separated the alcohol and water or not.

What about turning it into a cream type liqueur instead - I have no idea how you do that but it would mask the current problems and would taste quite nice I would imagine

[The Riff-Raff Element]

No idea about louche etc but I do know essential oils - if you heat it they will come off first and you'll be left with an orange coloured not very orangey liqueur whether it separated the alcohol and water or not.

Should be OK at 60°C - but you're quite right: they are pretty volitile, hence the need for a sealed bottle and very gentle heat. I've no idea how to make a cream liqueur - blender?

[MKG]

It looks odd but tastes better though !

I'd put it down to experience if I were you. The statement above says it all as far as I can see. It ain't really broken - don't fix it.

Mike

[dave45]

You are quite right - it aint really broke. But I am intrigued so will try and fix it anyway. I still have some of the original pre-louche mixture. A friend has mentioned mixing techniques being important with oil-based liquids (ISTR an online coca-cola recipe mixing the stuff with a power-drill) so maybe I'll try wazzing the louched stuff a blender to see what happens. Heat and blender - which will produce a result?

Anyway - its a great way to do something useful with orange peel ! I should try lemons next maybe?

[dave45]

Experimental results:

whizzing in a blender for 2 minutes - no effect

heating in a pyrex jug in 20 sec intervals until boiling - no effect

adding 65% neat spirit - instant clearing, up to a saturation point - probably the critical %age for orange oils.

So there we have it - seems that you can't make much lower-alcohol cointreau substitutes using the soak-zest-in-alcohol method. Maybe I just need to get some absinthe ritual kit to drink this stuff....