Recipe: Hen's Milk Italian Liqueur

I received a wonderful Christmas present The Bible of Homemade Italian Liqueurs.  A wonderful collection of over 150 recipes with super cool names Drunken Black Cherries Cream, Dried Figs and Truffles Liqueur, Red Roses Rosolio and more!  Just the names are enough to excite me about this book.

Being the wild and crazy kind of guy I am, I decided to make the first recipe I opened to, which was Hen's Milk Liqueur.

Ingredients:
- 1 1/4 cup of 190 proof alcohol (I used Everclear)
- 1 liter of milk
- 4 1/2 cups of sugar
- 1 vanilla bean
- 8 egg yolks
- 1 cup of Marsala Wine

Hen's Milk Liqueur

Boil the milk with the vanilla and sugar.  I took the liberty of splitting the vanilla bean down the middle as most recipes call for. Let cool. Beat the egg yolks (make sure you have a big bowl to handle everything). Pour in a little milk at a time on the whipped yolks, stirring.  Beat the mixture until the milk and eggs are well mixed.  Add the Marsala Wine and Everclear. Bottle and let rest for two days.  Keep refrigerated for up to a month.

The result is a concoction similar to eggnog but very different.  The flavors are sugary vanilla and hazelnut with a lightly spicy finish.

Drizzle over fruit for dessert or add one part hen's milk to three parts rum or brandy for a creamy dessert drink. Piu eccellente!

The Liquorist Blog