Sheesh!! What a pain, but I think worth it. Have plenty of time to get the Pomegranate seeds out of the fruit. It took me well over an hour with 5 poms. DO NOT wear a white shirt while doing this!!!
Utensils required
- 1 Gallon Glass jar with lid
- multiple glass or similar bowls
- potato masher
- vegetable peeler
- strainer
- lots of paper towels
- lots of patience and time (2 hours)
- Do Not wear something you don't want stained.
- Note: Wipe up any Pomegranate juice on your counter right away. It Stains!
Ingredients
- 5-6 Pomegranates
- peel of One Lemon (use potato peeler to get the peel only - do not get the white pith! Pith will make it sour.
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1 1.75 Liter of Svenka vodka
- 1 cup Simple Sugar
Directions
- Cut the Poms vertically, not horizontally, from the stem down, in half.
- In a large bowl, fill with enough water to cover most of the Pom when face down in the water. The water prevents most of the Pom juice from going everywhere. Pom juice stains!!!
- With the cut side in the water, press in the center of the Pom to push the seeds out into the water. You are basically pushing it inside-out.
- Remove any stubborn seeds and place in the water. The Membranes, pith, flesh all float to the top. Remove and discard. Any seeds stuck to anything white, remove the white portions and discard.
- Since 5-6 Poms is a lot of seeds, I placed the seeds removed into a larger bowl with water to cover. Any white membranes that float to the top, remove and discard.
- Repeat 1-5 until all Poms are processed.
- With all of the seeds in a large bowl, completely fill to the top and mix with your hands to find white membranes. Remove and any seeds that float to the top.
- Now the hard part... In a small flat bottom glass bowl (with high sides is the best or more Pom juice everywhere!!!), use a potato masher and press firmly down on the seeds to break open. Some people use a blender or food processor - let me know how that works. You will feel and hear the seeds snap. Crush as many as possible, but it's OK to leave some whole ones.
- Place in a 1 gallon sterile jar.
- Repeat process until all Poms are crushed and placed in the jar.
- Pour in the entire bottle of Svenka vodka.
- Add the cinnamon stick.
- Using a vegetable peeler, peel the skin off of a whole lemon. Try not to get too much of the pith (white part). Add to the mixture.
- The original recipe says to wait 3 weeks to let steep before adding the Simple Sugar, but I added it at the beginning of the process.
- Close the jar tightly and store in a dark, cool place for 3-8 weeks.
- Shake the jar a few times a week to mix.
- After the steeping is finished, pour the liqueur through cheese cloth very carefully to not agitate the Pom residue at the bottom too much (it tastes nasty). Remove the liquid as best possible and dump the remaining fruit into the cheese cloth and squeeze to get all of the liquid out.
- When pouring into bottles, if any fruit pieces made it thru the first filtration process, filter again while pouring into bottles.
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