Pastis/Arak/Ouzo

edited November 2015 in Cookbook

This recipe was originally posted by Apsynt on Artisan Distiller. I have used this recipe and tweaks of it for a long time to produce a very fine ouzo type liquor. I always add 2l of cheap white cask wine to the charge to bring over some of that brandy flavour.

Full recipe here..

I have been doing this one for a while now and it's been rather popular. I cook mine in small batches on the stove.
A very unscientific recipe i use is

2.5L of neutral at about 45%
2 fistfuls of star anise
1 stick cinnamon
3 cracked cardamom pods
pinch of white and black pepper
2 sprigs of fresh fennel
half a nutmeg, cracked
4 cloves

I don't bother with suspending it in a basket as one does when making gin, just put all the ingredients together and distill. Generally i remove about 100ml of heads and stop collecting as soon as the output becomes cloudy.
Depending on how strong your anise it, you can dilute it to about 45% before it starts going cloudy. for a more attractive color add little bit of caramelized sugar.

My interpretation of this recipe goes like this;

8 litres of 40% neutral spirits
3 litres of feints from last Ouzo run
2 litres of cheap white wine
4 x the spice mix listed above

There will be a very small heads cut and then hearts start at 75% in my potstill. I usually collect down as low as 30% as the spices are carried over at different times in the run with cinamon and then the cardamon coming last. This gives me around 5.5 litres at 70% or 10l once cut to 40%

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Comments

  • edited May 2023

    Necro...
    My 2 cents
    I have made @punkin's version and it was good, but sorta spicy. I tweaked the recipe with 40g of licorice root and it rounds it out nicely and balances better with a slight perception of sweetness. My two handfulls of star anise is 250g and i used green cardamon pods. All spices dry fried, smashed in a mortar and pestle and soaked in the boiler with the neutral overnight.

    Oh yeah, Howdy y'all/G'day you mob, after a bit of an absence, i am back at it.

    If it aint half off, it aint on sale!

  • Bit of an absence? Jeez.

    Welcome back mate. Good stuff.

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

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