Is it possible to drink oak bark tea? Medicinal properties of oak bark and contraindications

Each of us has known about apricots since childhood. Small juicy ones, fragrant fruits They beckon you with their sweet taste. Let's learn more about its beneficial qualities.

This wonderful fruit can be consumed in several forms. It can be fresh fruits, boiled, baked, in the form of dried fruits. In addition to these well-known methods, there is another one - apricot-based tincture. To prepare it, you can use the fruit itself, the seeds, or mix both ingredients.

The universal method of using fruits will allow you to use their surplus, if available. Also, preparing tinctures will help preserve useful material for a long time. You will be able to take natural vitamins even in winter period, when they are especially lacking.

Recipes

On apricot kernels

Ingredients you will need:

• apricot kernels – 200 g;
• vodka – 1 l;
• sugar – 100 g;
• vanilla – 4-5 g.

Cooking method:

1. The peeled apricot kernels must be crushed.
2. Then pour vodka over them and leave in the sun for 4-5 weeks.
3. After this, the resulting tincture is filtered through gauze folded in several layers or a coffee paper filter.
4. After straining add sugar and vanilla
5. To ensure that the resulting tincture is not very strong, you can add not sugar, but sugar syrup.
6. To prepare the syrup, boil 0.5 liters of water and dissolve 100 g of sugar. The resulting liquid is added to the drink and mixed well.
7. Tincture for apricot kernels ready!

On apricots and pits

This is one of the very old, proven recipes. It's very easy to prepare. It turns out aromatic, pleasant to the taste, beautiful amber color tincture.

Ingredients needed to prepare the tincture:

• apricots – 1 kg;
• vodka – 1 l;
• cinnamon – 4-5 g;
• cloves - 5 pieces;
• sugar 250 g.

Cooking sequence:

1. Apricots must be washed, dried and pitted.
2. The seed kernels are removed and finely chopped.
3. The fruit pulp is cut into small pieces.
4. The two resulting ingredients are placed in a jar, sugar, cinnamon and cloves are added.
5. The resulting mixture is poured with vodka.
6. The contents of the jar are covered with a lid and hidden in a dark place.
7. After a month, you need to open the jar and first filter the resulting product through a sieve. Then through gauze or coffee paper 2-3 times and cork in bottles.
8. Your tincture is ready!

In addition to the above-mentioned recipes, apricot kernels are also used to prepare essential oil. It tastes like peach or almond.

Properties

The fruit has many useful properties. Among them are the following:

• improves memory and brain activity;
• is an excellent diuretic;
• increases hemoglobin levels;
• may have laxative and decongestant effects;
• has antibacterial properties.

The apricot kernel also contains many vitamins: A, B1, B2, B6, C, E. Vitamin A - cleanses blood vessels, makes the walls more elastic, helps fight increased level cholesterol. Other useful components, minerals have a positive effect on the entire body as a whole. Strengthening how individual organs, and their systems.

Application

Apricot kernels in the form of oil or tincture are used for coughs, laryngitis, bronchitis, tracheitis, bronchial asthma and other diseases respiratory tract. The oil can also be used for rubbing into the cuticle, nail plate, and hair ends. This will cause a healing effect.

A tincture of pulp and/or apricot kernels is useful to take in small quantities for the following diseases:

• diseases of the cardiovascular system;
• kidney diseases;
• constipation;
• anemia.

During promotion mental stress The use of apricot liqueurs is also recommended. They are used as maintenance therapy in the treatment of oncological pathologies.
The bactericidal properties of the pulp will prove excellent in the treatment of work disorders gastrointestinal tract. You can also add a few drops of oil or tincture to face and hair masks. Such masks will be more nutritious and fortified.

Contraindications

This wonderful fruit and its derivatives have some contraindications:

1. It is not recommended to use tinctures on an empty stomach. This may cause digestive problems.
2. If there are ulcers, diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, accompanied by high acidity.
3. Since tinctures contain a significant amount of sugar, they are not recommended for use by people with diabetes.
4. At reduced work thyroid gland The carotene present in apricots will not be absorbed. In this case, it is recommended to compensate for the deficiency of vitamin A by consuming it in its pure form.

Having assessed all the advantages and noted the contraindications, we can safely say: apricot and pit tinctures are an excellent natural medicine!

Video

There was no competition for the popularity of the “Russian liqueur,” as the liqueur is now called, until our autocrat opened a “window to Europe” and people poured out from there in search of work and better life ruined “Monsieurs”, teach our “Mitrofanushki” European wisdom.

Together with overseas teachers, new alcoholic drinks appeared in Russia, among which was liqueur - the closest “relative” of liqueur. The only difference between them was that the main component in liqueurs was and remains not alcohol, as in liqueurs, but its fruit component. Alcohol came to us from the east, and our ancestors “sinned”, at most, by fermenting juices with honey, so they began to add vodka to the original Russian drink later, solely in order to extend the shelf life of drinks.

The variety of liqueurs in Russia is now approaching the variety of fruits and berries that not only grow here, but also those that, depending on the season, fill the windows and counters of shops, markets and supermarkets. But first of all, liqueurs are prepared from the most accessible, domestic fruits.

Apricot was once considered an overseas fruit in Rus', and therefore liqueur from it was considered a luxury for the nobility, but to this day in our outbacks there are people who know the recipe for homemade apricot liqueur by heart from their great-grandmother, but have never heard of liqueurs , and are unlikely to be upset by this fact.

Let's talk about apricot liqueurs at home, about general principles and about the intricacies of its preparation. Domestic home-grown producers of “Russian liqueur” have something to be proud of.

Homemade apricot liqueur - basic technological principles

Pouring - not only folk drink. Its production began in Soviet times on an industrial basis, and very successfully. Of course, technologists at distillery enterprises have developed liqueur recipes. But what’s so wonderful about homemade liqueurs from apricots and other fruits is that people at their home distilleries are not bound by technological conventions, economy regimes and other industrial “troubles.” If we want, we can afford any degree, aroma, taste, and fruity richness.

Of all the conditions considered sacred and mandatory in production, we will take into account only the most necessary ones.

The liqueur is a fruit extract with an alcohol content of 18-20% and sugar content of 28-40%. In industrial conditions, one of the ways to obtain it involves the use of alcoholized fruit juice, fruit juice, food coloring, flavor enhancers (essences), and other additives.

Homemade liqueurs mainly use natural raw materials. Juice or crushed fruits, bypassing the fermentation process, are infused with vodka, alcohol or other strong alcoholic drinks, with or without adding water. The resulting fruit extract is filtered, sweetened and aged until ready. Despite the fact that sugar dissolves in liqueurs quite quickly, it takes some time for a harmonious taste to form, since immediately after dissolution the sugar is sharply discordant in the drink.

Depending on the fruit raw materials used, liqueurs are distinguished into late-ripening, mid-ripening and early-ripening. The denser the pulp of the processed fruit, the longer the ripening process for the liqueur. Quantitative composition The ingredients for liqueurs do not have to be kept in the strictest form, unless you set a goal to prepare an already tried recipe, to accurately repeat its taste.

The technology for homemade apricot liqueur is very simple and accessible to every housewife who wants to enjoy a lady’s drink with her friends during dessert.

1. Recipe for homemade apricot liqueur with alcohol

Compound:

• Apricots, garden 1 kg

  Sugar 450 g

  Alcohol 93.6% 350 ml

Preparation:

Select ripe apricots. For liqueur, you can use slightly crushed berries, but without signs of spoilage. Wash and let the water drain. Remove the seeds and chop well. The smaller the fruit particles, the better: small particles will quickly transfer the juice and all the substances contained in apricots to alcohol. Place the prepared raw materials in a jar with a capacity of 3 liters. Pour alcohol over the berries. And mix well. The alcohol should cover the apricots by 2-3 cm. If this does not work, then add 0.5 liters of water. For all liqueurs we use only specially prepared water (distilled, melted water, spring water). The water should be soft, without foreign impurities.

We keep the extract for 15 days and do not forget to shake it regularly, at least in the morning and evening. Extraction will be more successful with more high temperature.

If you come across advice that the extract should not be tightly covered with a lid, but the neck should be tied with gauze, do not believe it. Of course, the extract can be protected from dust and insects in this way, but in this case all the alcohol and the aroma of the berries will evaporate along with it even before the berries have time to be extracted. Close only tightly.

Pass the resulting tincture through a thick filter. Pour the remaining grounds with the second part of the water, heat, then strain the water. After the second drain, the grounds can be thrown away. Add sugar to the water and boil the syrup until thick. Pour the syrup, cooled to 25-30°C, into the tincture, stir in a closed container and keep the finished homemade apricot liqueur warm for another week. Can be bottled and sealed. Alcohol liqueur can be stored for a long time. When stored, its taste only improves.

2. An old recipe for homemade apricot liqueur “Zhardel”

Compound:

Wild apricots 3 kg

Honey, May 1 l

Vodka, apricot 2.8 l

Preparation:

Peel ripe forest apricots with a brush, wash and remove seeds and all spoiled berries. Place the prepared fruits in a ceramic pan and fill to the top spring water. Place in a hot oven (100-110°C), cover with a lid and simmer until the heat goes away (until the oven cools).

Reheat the oven. Add the remaining water combined with honey to the infusion. Simmer the infusion. To avoid boiling, heat under the lid for 2-3 hours. Do not open the oven, but if necessary, lower the temperature, turn off the heat, cool, and warm up again.

In a Russian oven, such an infusion was prepared for 3 days and a pot of apricots and honey was placed in the oven after the cabbage soup. This is how in the old days the temperature was measured for cooking food in the oven: after the bread, after the cabbage soup.

When the container has cooled completely, pour its contents through the filter into an enamel bucket. Add vodka, let stand until clarified and, after removing the sediment, pour into bottles.

3. Homemade apricot liqueur with kernels

Compound:

Garden apricots 3.3 kg

Sugar 1.2 kg

Purified moonshine or vodka (40%) 2.5 l

Preparation:

Wash sorted ripe apricots and remove pits. Crush the pulp and mix it with sugar. Crush 10% of the seeds, remove the kernels from them and, having also crushed them, add them to the bottle with apricot pulp and sugar. Pour the mixture with high-quality vodka or moonshine, without foreign odors.

Leave for 3-4 months. The container should be shaken periodically to improve extraction. Filter the finished liqueur and pour it into bottles. Crushed apricot kernels will give the liqueur a resemblance to the famous “Amaretto”, and such a drink is very useful for making aromatic pastries, for example, one of the most delicious Soviet-era cakes “Abrikotina”.

4. Homemade apricot and bird cherry liqueur

Compound:

Bird cherry (berries) 150 g

Apricots 5 kg

Sugar 1.5 kg

Alcohol, wine (70%) 1.7 l

Preparing the liqueur:

Dry pitted apricots and bird cherry berries by spreading them out thin layer on the grill. Soak the berries for fresh air, in hot weather, but not in the sun, but in the shade. To protect them from insects, cover them with gauze. Then chop the fruits and put them in a bottle. Boil a thick syrup, pour it into a bottle with berries and add alcohol when the syrup is still warm. Cover the container with a lid and shake. Keep the infusion no less three months in the warmth. Then pass the composition through a filter and seal the finished liqueur in bottles.

5. Homemade apricot liqueur with oranges

Compound:

Juice, orange 1 l

Apricots (puree) 2 kg

Sugar 900 g

Vodka 2.2 l

Vanilla 2-3 pods

Cooking method:

Place the finished apricot puree with vanilla pods in a bottle and fill with vodka. Keep the tincture for 14 days. Place the bottle in the kitchen, closer to warmth. It must be shaken morning and evening, and if possible, more often. Strain the tincture after the specified time. Pour in the grounds orange juice and add sugar. Heat until the sugar dissolves, but do not boil. Also filter the syrup. Combine it with tincture. Store in the bottle for up to two months. Repeat filtering if necessary. Pour into prepared container and seal. This liqueur is interesting not only as a drink, but also indispensable for cooking. delicious desserts, baking.

6. Homemade liqueur from apricots, raspberries, strawberries and gooseberries

Compound:

Berries in arbitrary proportions 2 parts

Sugar and water - 1 part each

Vodka 1.5 parts

Cooking method:

The drink should be thick and rich, with a stretchy consistency. Pour selected and crushed berries with vodka. “Forget” about the jar for a month or a month and a half. Then squeeze out the berries and add syrup made from equal parts of water and sugar. Keep the drink in a closed container for another couple of months.

Apricot liqueur at home - useful tips and tricks

To prepare liqueur from fruits with dense pulp, from which it is difficult to obtain juice, you can partially use industrial technology, where the fruits are pre-fermented to obtain more intense juice release.

To increase the volume of juice, the following method of preparing the liqueur is used: having received natural juice, the squeezed fruit pulp is poured hot water, mix and drain the diluted juice through the filter again. Based on this juice from the second drain, you can prepare a syrup, which is then combined with alcoholized juice. In addition to increasing the volume of the drink, with this method of production, the quality of the liqueur is significantly improved.

Subtle aroma beautiful colour, pleasant taste? Apricot tincture has all these qualities. Those who are interested in making homemade alcoholic drinks must know at least one way to use the sweet yellow fruit.

Classic tincture

Let's start with the classics. The recipe for classic apricot liqueur is laconic and simple. It uses seedless fruit. Here full list products:

• 1 kg of ripe but not overripe apricots;
• 1 liter of vodka or 40% moonshine;
• 0.5 kg sugar.

It is necessary to sort out the fruits and remove the seeds from them, transfer them to a jar, add vodka and shake. The layer of liquid above the pulp should be at least 5 cm. Close the jar and place it in a sunny place, where it will stay for a month. Often this place is a window sill on the south or east side of the house. Shake the jar every 5 days.

After a month, the liquid should be drained without squeezing into another bottle, and half a kilo of sugar should be poured into the apricots, mixed with fruit and left to steep in the sun for another 2 weeks. Every 2 days, shake the jar so that the sugar melts well.

After 14 days, sugar syrup should form. It is filtered through cheesecloth, the softened fruit is squeezed out. The syrup is mixed with previously drained alcohol, kept for another week in the dark, after which it is filtered again and bottled into convenient bottles.

How to use the seeds

Apricot? so healthy fruit that even the core can be used in it, and the following recipe is confirmation of this. The tincture on the seeds has become popular due to its smell, similar to the smell of almonds.

• Break the apricot kernels, remove the kernels, and chop them. You will need 100 g of nucleoli.
• Fill the kernels with 0.5 liters of vodka and place the container in the sun for 25 days.
• Drain the infusion and squeeze the pulp through a cloth. Then add another 0.2 liters of vodka and squeeze out after 15 minutes.
• The liquid must be filtered through white napkins, add 50 g of sugar (approximately 3 large spoons), 1 g of vanillin and shake well.
• The drink should stand in the dark for 4 days. After this, it is filtered one last time.

The infusion of apricot kernels should be consumed in moderation, since it contains a small amount of hydrocyanic acid. Storage can last indefinitely.

Use of honey and mint

Among the various recipes for apricot liqueurs, you can
highlight the recipe with mint, honey and juice.

First you need to prepare a decoction of peppermint. To do this, pour 25 g of dry mint with boiling water (200 ml? standard glass), leave for 4 hours, filter.

The future apricot tincture should be kept in the dark for 2 weeks, shaking the jar once for the first 7-10 days
per day. After 14 days, the drink is filtered, it is completely ready for consumption.

Apricots and wine

If you have a bottle of inexpensive dry or semi-dry white wine, we recommend making an excellent tincture.

• Pour the wine into a saucepan, add 450 g of sugar and heat over medium heat until the sugar has melted.
• Cut and pour 0.5 kg of apricot into a pan, after removing the seeds.
• Bring the mixture to a boil and cook for 7-10 minutes.
• Remove the pan from the heat, pour in 150 g of vodka.

When the brew has cooled, it is poured into a jar or bottle and kept in the refrigerator for a week. Finally, the tincture is thoroughly filtered to make it more transparent. Use it in small quantities before meals, as well as after meals with dessert.

Apricot liqueur with vodka.

Apricot liqueur has a truly refined taste with a distinct and persistent aroma of fruit, but only if it is carried out correctly and all the conditions specified in the recipe are met. There are several such recipes, but three options, by all indicators, are the best, proven by practice, and the technological process is so simple that even a beginner can easily master it. The result is a homemade delicious apricot liqueur with vodka. Apricot kernel tincture will also be worthy of praise. The main ingredient is freshly picked apricot fruits; both frozen and canned ones are suitable. Initially, the fruits are carefully sorted to eliminate rotten and moldy ones, then washed under running water. The second ingredient is 40-45% alcohol, inexpensive cognac or homemade moonshine without foreign impurities.

Classic apricot liqueur

According to this recipe, the seeds are removed from the fruit.

The composition of the ingredients can be supplemented with one more thing - sugar, for those who like sweet alcoholic drinks: 1 liter of vodka of any kind; 1 kg of apricots; half a kilogram of sugar.

Steps for preparing apricot liqueur: First, remove the pits and set aside. They can be used to prepare other tinctures. Transfer the prepared apricots into a jar, fill them with vodka, stir and make sure that the vodka does not just cover the apricots, but is 6 cm higher than them; if desired, you can pour vodka up to the neck of the container. Close the container tightly and take it to the sunniest place on whole month. Shake the contents well once every five days. The resulting alcohol liquid is poured into another container without allowing the pulp to survive. Sugar is added to the pulp, mixed and again left for two weeks in the sunniest place, making sure to shake the container once every 3 days. This step is very important, since the sugar allows you to obtain the remains of the aromatic alcohol contained in the pulp. The resulting syrup is filtered through a couple of layers of gauze, and the remaining pulp is squeezed out well. Syrup and alcohol infusion mix in one container, infuse in a dark place for a week. Once again, filter the tincture through a couple of layers of gauze or a thick napkin, and then bottle it. This tincture can be safely stored for five years.

Apricot kernel tincture

Those who have tried the tincture made according to this recipe claim that it is very similar to homemade Amaretto liqueur, which has a pleasant almond aroma without any foreign flavors (there are no smells of any spices).

This tincture can only be consumed in 150 ml doses, no more, due to the fact that the seeds, although in small quantities, contain hydrocyanic acid.

To prepare the tincture you need: vodka of any kind - 0.7 l; apricot kernels - 100 g; vanillin - 1 g; sugar - 50 g. Stages of preparing the tincture: The prepared apricot kernels are crushed, transferred to a jar and filled with half a liter of vodka. Shake, cover with a lid, and leave for 25 days in a bright place. The infusion is filtered and then squeezed out using gauze. The remaining kernels are again poured with 200 ml of vodka, stirred and set aside for 20 minutes, then squeezed well again. The resulting liquids are mixed and filtered, this time using cotton wool or a napkin. Vanillin and sugar are added. Seal the container and shake well. For 4 days, place this container in a dark, cool place, then filter. Bottled and placed in a designated place for storage. The shelf life is unlimited for this drink.

Apricot liqueur with mint and honey

This recipe is good because you can use it at any time of the year and get an excellent aromatic drink that has a soft sweet taste.

For preparation you will need: alcohol 40-45% (any vodka) - 0.5 l; apricot juice - 0.5 l; honey of any kind - 150 g; pure water- 200 ml; peppermint - 25 g. To obtain an excellent quality tincture, take freshly prepared juice, but in the absence of such, purchase a store-bought equivalent. Recipe: Pour boiling water over mint, cover with a lid and leave for five hours. Cooled down mint decoction filter, add apricot juice, honey and alcohol. The contents are mixed, sealed with a lid and kept in a warm, dark place for two weeks. During the first week, the container is shaken. The resulting tincture is filtered using cotton wool, poured into prepared containers and stored. This tincture can be stored for up to three years. By strictly following the recipes, you get an excellent apricot liqueur with vodka. The tincture on apricot kernels is not inferior in its taste qualities and aroma.