Comment: Very caraway-forward, but with well-balanced spice and sweetness. Wolfschmidt Doppelt Kummel. 39%. Wolfschmidt Kummel dates to 1847 when it was first produced in the Latvian capital, Riga. Made to a historical Danish recipe (nowadays in England), it is branded as a ‘double kummel’, indicating a higher proportion of botanicals. The brand leader in the UK (and among the many golf and gentleman’s clubs), this is seen as the benchmark for kummel. We say: If you like Aviation's then this caraway influenced sour may appeal. It's powerfully flavoured so also consider serving in an old-fashioned over ice to allow dilution to tame the flavours. Golf is a sport with the power to make you the hero of your own story or send you into the depths of despair. After 3 day filter the spices from the alcohol and pour the infused spirit into a clean 750 ml bottle that has a cap or closure. You can filter the spices with a simple mesh strainer or a coffee filter. Since I have a V60 for making coffee at home I use that. If you use a paper or cloth filter, remember to wet it before hand, or the filter will soak up you alcohol.

Whether that is due to a decision by the company to remove distribution in the U.K. or if the product itself is no longer to be produced at all is not known, and the details behind it seem to be extremely vague. This year we have spent a great deal of time studying the early history of the game. When you think about the rules of golf, how hole sizes, or indeed, the number of holes on the links was determined in those early days, it is only fair to assume that those same pioneering early golf clubs who set those trends might have adopted Kummel as a post lunch tipple and as such, accidentally, blazed another trail of their own. We say: Perhaps best described as a Kummel Martini with kummel liqueur's strong caraway favours fortified with vodka, freshened and made more complex by the addition of grapefruit bitters.We say: Dry and Martini-like. Assertive kummel flavours pervade a punchy mix of rum and coconut water.

A charming and evocative scene of drinking kümmel occurs in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's television miniseries, "Berlin Alexanderplatz" (1980), where the character Franz Biberkopf speaks in the voices of glasses of kümmel and three beers in a philosophical dialogue as he evaluates the taste and downs each drink in turn. Kummel seems to have taken off in 1930s as golf clubs spread over the British countryside. Nobody seems to know why. My theory is that as most golf clubs are relatively recent creations, their normally nouveau-riche founders were aping the habits of older institutions, including drinking kummel. Nobody likes a bit of invented tradition more than golfers. Since I don’t have a still, I started looking for kummel recipes online that use maceration (soaking botanicals in alcohol) instead. While Google came trough and gave me some results, none of the online recipes were exactly what I was looking for. However, I came across a note about an old French distillers recipe book that included kummel. There was no mention of a title or author so it took awhile to locate but eventually I found the source: Culture de la Vigne: Traitement Pratique des Vins: Vinification - Distillation by Raimond Boireau (1876). The book includes five recipes for kummel (pp 451-453): One with just caraway, one with caraway essence, and three that use caraway with a small amount of other spices. Based on these recipes I decided to make one bottle (750ml) of about 40% ABV kummel that was 30 parts caraway, 2 parts coriander and 1 part fennel. Recipe for EZ Homemade Kummel

If you live in an area where 190 Everclear is not available you can also use 400 ml of 151 Everclear (75.5% ABV), or 600 ml of 100 proof vodka (50% ABV) with the same amount of spices. The maceration won’t be as intense and you will not need as much simple syrup to bring it down to proof. At Brooklyn’s Maison Premiere, the liqueur appears in the High Chicago, a vegetal and savory drink that doubles down on kümmel’s herb-and-spice notes by partnering it with Suze and Greek mastiha. “This is an expression of sun-kissed beta-carotene plants and vegetables and colors,” bar director Will Elliot notes, in reference to the spectrum of spirits in the mix, from Greek mastiha (distilled from tree resin) to apricot eau de vie. We say: Not so far removed from an Aviation. Depending on your grapefruit juice, this particular Weekly Special may be very slightly on the sweet side but it's fantastically aromatic and characterful. If you find too sweet, then slightly up the grapefruit juice.

For golfers, Kummel evokes a sense of nostalgia, a decorative compliment to the familiar scene we all love about Golf. Sitting out on the terrace while the sun sets, with the dappled light transforming the links into a watercolour of rumpled fairways and long shadows whilst you sit there sharing a constant series of well-worn stories. That’s the real essence of golf clubs in Britain – where camaraderie trumps playing-ability. Kummel, also spelled Kümmel, is a botanical liqueur flavored primarily by distilling caraway and then sweetened. But, as it turns out, you do not need a still to make a fairly simple and delicious version of kummel at home. excludes Northern Ireland, the Scottish Highlands & Islands, and the Isles of Wight, Man and Scilly - please see below) E A Simmons considers kummel in 1874's The American Bar-Tender as, "the favorite liqueur of Russia; the best is made at Weissenchein, in Esthonia." In the mid-19th Century, kümmel was the rival of gin. Being made with caraway rather than juniper, it had one main advantage: caraway has a calmative effect, reducing flatulence and the bloated feeling experienced after a heavy meal. By 1850, [3] this "medicinal" benefit helped Ludwig Mentzendorff create a healthy business importing kümmel to Britain.

History of kummel

Once the spices and alcohol are in the same container, seal it up, give it a shake and let sit for 3 days out of direct sunlight. The alcohol will extract flavors and some color out of the spices, and if you want to give it a shake once a day, go for it. Kummel is a caraway-flavoured liqueur – the UK uses the Dutch spelling without an umlaut (it’s kümmel in Germany); the word simply means ‘caraway’. Production methods vary slightly by brand – using Mentzendorff as an example, alcohol made from sugar beet is double-distilled in a pot still with caraway seeds. After the second distillation, sugar is added and the mixture is watered down to 38% abv. It is then left to rest for two months in stainless-steel vats before being bottled. Kummel is therefore similar to taffel Akvavit, except that the latter is aged in oak casks. Our advice would be to bag a bottle for yourselves, sit on it, and enjoy a vintage drop in years to come.