Green almond wines and digestives

[Margaret Pilgrim]

A friend just called asking me for directions for French wines or digestives made from green almonds. Apparently, she acquired a sack at this morning's farmer's market. And has enough to share, should I come up with a recipe.

[bleudauvergne]

Hmm, I've been seeing them around too. Don't forget next weekend is St. Jean, the day the green walnuts are supposed to come out, too. I wonder if a mixed nut liqueur recipe might be the thing?

[Dave Hatfield]

Here's a link to an interesting article and recipes for vin de noix and liqueur de noix.

Haven't found anything on green almond wine as of yet. I'll ask a neighbor who makes & has kindly given us a bottle of her vin de noix. Maybe she knows something or knows somebody who does.

[loladrian]

Oh, I can't wait to hear what you come up with Margaret. Aside from booze, what else can you do with those guys? I am very curious. The only recipe I found online that called for "green almonds" was in fact, chopped almonds with green food coloring. yikes.

Edited June 17, 2007 by loladrian (log)

[Ptipois]

Now my knowledge is still a work in progress but while I have oftentimes heard of "vin de noix" made from green walnuts picked on the day of Saint-Jean (Summer solstice), I have never heard of any liquor or spirit made from green almonds.

A recipe for almond liqueur I found requires dried almonds, not green, and a mixture of sweet and bitter. And orange flower water, plus the spirit and sugar. You are supposed to get something somewhat resembling amaretto.

IMO the sensible thing to do with green almonds is break and peel them then eat them raw, or put them in salads.

[bleudauvergne]

Here's a link to the Nocin & Vin de Noix Thread. I think that at one time the two threads were seperate but now they have been combined. Lots of history and information about vin de noix on the thread. I have been doing vin de noix for a few years now.

This morning, because Margaret's query got me interested, I found an interesting recipe in one of my ancient cookbooks that uses the pits of fruit which in essence, Almond would categorically fall into. I hammered dents into my kitchen table trying to crack mirabelle pits last year and see that I could have used them whole for the same effect.

I suppose removing the outer fruit of the almond would be a nice idea since in some home made gift wines and liqueurs I have made in the past the fruit can turn color and you never know what the almond fruit would do. Since the flavor comes from the pit, you could in essence do it very similarly to how they are treating in in the Nocino thread but use the unroasted fresh almond pits without cutting them or crushing them.

Remove the fruit from the pits, clean and scrub them well to remove the fruit, and do your mix with sugar syrup with either vodka or grain alcohol. I would assume that with almond, you'd want to up your sugar ratio. Why not add a vanilla pod? Rum might turn out something interesting as well.