Nocino

[Bobtuse]

Ok, tis the season for green walnuts, and a buddy of mine came up with a 10# box, and samples from his last years batch of nocino. I had a reflux run for neutral scheduled so it seemed like perfect timing. This is similar to the Grunne Nusse, except with spices added to the maceration rather than walnuts only. It was nice to have the samples, as I had never tried it before,, and to be able to modify to my tastes.

Into large jar with wide mouth--I used 1.5-2 liter square glass swing top jars-- add:

about 2.5# green walnuts quartered. Basically filled the jar 3/4 full.
Zest of one large lemon
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup honey -- deviated from the recipe here, his batch was too sweet at 2 cups sugar. I may add more later if it needs it. Thought the honey might add something nice.
5/8 tsp nutmeg
Cinnamon--His recipe calls for one stick, i have ground cassia bark and used 1 tsp.
10 cloves-- orig recipe calls for 20, i thought it was too overpowering
1 tbsp vanilla bean paste or 1 vanilla bean.

Top up with 60% abv neutral and give a good shake.

Looking to let it sit 2 months or so, strain, filter filter filter, and bottle for another 4 months of aging

It quickly turned green, then also quickly turned a bluish black and after less than a week is blackish.

In the us at least, you can order green walnuts from www.walnuts.us

Cant wait to see how it turns out!

BoB

[punkin]

Sounds great. Been thinking of playing round some with some of my liquers too.

Carefull of the swing top jars for long aging, once you throw the rubber seal out, they lose 10-15% ABV a year.

[Bobtuse]

I have been thinking of whipping up a silicon seal for them, have a bit left over from my last gasket. Thanks for the motivation.

Funny thing, the guy who made the last batch used those jars, was complaining about a kind of twang in the spirit he didnt like. When I made my batch, first thing I did was take the seals off. When I sniffed them it smelled like twangy nocino flavored rubber.

ShouldBeMuchBetterThisGoRound

[Oracle]

I am at the end of my first try at making nocino (just about ready to filter and bottle). I was inspired by an article in the May/June 2010 issue of Imbibe magazine. (I have it available as a .djvu file, which is very small @ 55kb).

Here is the nocino soon after I set it up in the jar:

Nocino_Young.JPG (57.4 KiB) Viewed 2243 times

Here is the nocino after about 3 months of aging (before filtering and bottling):

Nocino_Aged.jpg (23.75 KiB) Viewed 2242 times

The recipes I found in the article and in online searches all are basically macerates using grain or other alcohol or vodka as a base. Any idea what it might be like if it were distilled?

[Bobtuse]

Nice! I just had a little sample last night actually. Quite pleased with the results. Spicy and rich, the walnut comes through nicely. I did end up adding a bit more sugar a month or so back although the GF likes it a bit more on the bitter dry side.

I will be doing at least a double batch of this next year, yummy for the holidays and nice as a gift bottle of something a little different.

BoB

[thrasymachus]

Any idea what it might be like if it were distilled?

Yes, sort of. This year I made 10 liters of nocino in parfait jars. After draining the liquid (nocino) off the walnuts, I ran the remaining solids through my pot still (with a couple of liters of water to prevent scorching,) yielding a couple of liters of lovely, hard to describe stuff. Cut tails when it smells right; I redistilled the longish tails, combined with the first part, and diluted to 50%. Highly highly recommended.

I do this with the solids left over from most infusions I make (at reasonable volume.) Sloe, cherry, raspberry, and currant leftovers also yield compelling spirits, but the green walnut is by far my favorite.

[mikejwoodnz]

Any idea what it might be like if it were distilled?

Yes, sort of. This year I made 10 liters of nocino in parfait jars. After draining the liquid (nocino) off the walnuts, I ran the remaining solids through my pot still (with a couple of liters of water to prevent scorching,) yielding a couple of liters of lovely, hard to describe stuff. Cut tails when it smells right; I redistilled the longish tails, combined with the first part, and diluted to 50%. Highly highly recommended.

I do this with the solids left over from most infusions I make (at reasonable volume.) Sloe, cherry, raspberry, and currant leftovers also yield compelling spirits, but the green walnut is by far my favorite.

yip I'm with you on this one for the walnuts - this is a note to remind me but I'll be using 40% ABV for my stilling base as I kinda like those 70+% ABV shots - good tip for the raspberry etc infusions also as I tried the strained leftovers in the boiled water for the sugar syrups but too much of gel effect and the chickens won't eat them

[punkin]

Any idea what it might be like if it were distilled?

Yes, sort of. This year I made 10 liters of nocino in parfait jars. After draining the liquid (nocino) off the walnuts, I ran the remaining solids through my pot still (with a couple of liters of water to prevent scorching,) yielding a couple of liters of lovely, hard to describe stuff. Cut tails when it smells right; I redistilled the longish tails, combined with the first part, and diluted to 50%. Highly highly recommended.

I do this with the solids left over from most infusions I make (at reasonable volume.) Sloe, cherry, raspberry, and currant leftovers also yield compelling spirits, but the green walnut is by far my favorite.

Interesting.

Wish i'd known or thought of this when i threw all those lovely six to twelve month old fruits that were disintegrating like a museum bottled snake in the bin...


I'll definately be remembering this next time. What do you think it'd be like with half the actual spirit added too for a clear schnapps.

Or as Oracle asked, distilled?

I reckon i have enough to try it, but it's wonderfully aged and mellowed, would be a shame to lose 2 years...

[Oracle]

Any idea what it might be like if it were distilled?

Yes, sort of. This year I made 10 liters of nocino in parfait jars. After draining the liquid (nocino) off the walnuts, I ran the remaining solids through my pot still (with a couple of liters of water to prevent scorching,) yielding a couple of liters of lovely, hard to describe stuff. Cut tails when it smells right; I redistilled the longish tails, combined with the first part, and diluted to 50%. Highly highly recommended.

I do this with the solids left over from most infusions I make (at reasonable volume.) Sloe, cherry, raspberry, and currant leftovers also yield compelling spirits, but the green walnut is by far my favorite.

I've read some terrific descriptions of making grappa and for the life of me never thought about trying to run the walnut/solids through the still like you described. I yet have my walnut remnants sitting in the refrigerator (in Zip-lock bags). My wife has been teasing me about not throwing the stuff away (hoarder?), but I was keeping them for a possible use in making spumoni (found an interesting recipe...). Anyway, now I'm motivated to give this a try. I figure I can run this through my alembic/propylene glycol double boiler to avoid scorching. Any reason to add anything besides a little water? I figure the walnuts are now saturated with 40 - 50% ethanol. Started out as 5 pounds of green walnuts. Will have to see what they weigh now and add a proportional amount of water.

Did you keep the distillate clean or add sugar to make it into a liqueur? Just sipping stuff or have you come up with a cocktail or other use?

The nocino I gave to family members has been a big hit when poured over ice cream (for those that don't like it straight).

[thrasymachus]

Did you keep the distillate clean or add sugar to make it into a liqueur? Just sipping stuff or have you come up with a cocktail or other use?

I keep mine clean. My nocino also has clove, cinnamon, and lemon peel, and these contribute to the flavor and make it seem sweet without adding sugar. It would be worth trying, though.

I don't have a cocktail yet, but I only got 2 liters this year and it's very nice to sip, at least to my taste.

I tried mixing some 50:50 with nocino, and it blends well enough, but I prefer the two pure components to the blend.

[Oracle]

OK. Here is what I did with my Nocino dregs from the 2010 batch:

Started out with 5 lbs freshly picked green walnuts (from Haag Farm in California).
Washed. Quartered. Split into 4 batches.
Placed in jars and covered with 40% ethanol (vodka) or 50% ethanol (vodka + grain ethanol). See pics above.
All jars had lemon zest. One jar had cinnamon stick and vanilla pod (~3").
Steeped/infused ~3-4 months. Shaken periodically. Opening jars briefly to "air out" throughout period.
Removed walnuts and other ingredients from 3 batches (stored in refrigerator in sealed bags).

One batch of walnuts was covered with a 750ml bottle of Marsala to steep/infuse for ~2 months.
[Infused Marsala "fortified" wine was decanted and remaining walnuts stored in refrigerator.]

Infused liquid from 4 walnut batches amended with sugar, cinnamon stick, vanilla pod, 3 cloves
(except for single batch that had the cinnamon/vanilla up front) for ~ 2 months.

Filtered the nocino batches (what a chore!). Stored in bottles. Gifts.

Remaining walnuts/lemon zest etc... were stored in refrigerator for ~ 2 months before distilling.

Placed all walnut dregs (and whatever other solids were recovered from the jars) into copper
alembic. Added ~600 ml distilled water. Sealed up the alembic and assembled the propylene glycol
bath/boiler (see link:)

http://www.artisan-distiller.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3367

Walnuts_in_Alembic.jpg (51.99 KiB) Viewed 1899 times

Set boiler temp to max at 102.5°C. Ran until vapor temp reached 96°C.

Summary of run in graph:

Nocino_Distillate_2011a.jpg (57.08 KiB) Viewed 1899 times

Reserved a small foreshots/heads fraction. Collected the rest in ~ 100 ml fractions.
Checked fractions the next day (with my wife's excellent nose) and pooled the first 6 fractions.
She remarked the 5th and 6th fractions had a notable "banana bread"-like character.
Adjusted pooled fraction to 40% by adding filtered water.

Final volume: ~900 ml "hearts" with around 250 ml feints. I know I left a bit in the still, not
running it out farther than 96°C, but didn't want to drag it out into the wee hours and
was too lazy to re-start it the next day.

Although a bit "raw" right after pooling, the flavor is nicely aromatic and has a slightly sweet
character. A very nice complement to the Nocino liqueur. Will certainly try this again
next year.

[Bobtuse]

Inspiring. Is it June yet?!

[adama]

I had 9 Mason Jars each with 630gms walnuts sitting under 75% abv for 3 months.

Some jars had herb, cloves, cinnamon star anise etc ~ when I added water and sugar and shook the jars to mix it up; the liquid foamed-up like a shaken bottle of Coke.

The Nocino that included lemon rind (along with the above herbs) did not foam-up at all after shaking.

I don't know what this means . . . . I'm just reporting my experience of it.

Regards

[mikejwoodnz]

I had 9 Mason Jars each with 630gms walnuts sitting under 75% abv.

Some jars had herb, cloves, cinnamon star anise etc ~ when I added water and sugar and shook the jars to mix it up; the liquid foamed-up like a shaken bottle of Coke.

The Nocino that included lemon rind (along with the above herbs) did not foam-up at all after shaking.

I don't know what this means . . . . I'm just reporting my experience of it.

Regards

OK that's good to know as my straight Nocino infusion has reached the 3 month mark and is ready for the next stage. My thoughts are that as I tried redistilling my raspberry residue, as above with an added litre of 40% neutral and a litre of water, after straining it from the infusion and got as expected a clear distillate with little hint of raspberry. The next one I did I poured another litre of 40% over the "spent" filtered raspberyy and bugger me - that coloured up like a fresh infusion ! So strained it and mixed it with the original and got a double base So for my Nocino I will strain off the 3 litre green (now black) infusion and add another litre, or whatever it measures of the strained amount, to the "spent" walnuts and then report back what I get before taking it to the next stage.

[Joe Legate]

Very intrigued. I have added this this to my "Must try very soon" list.
Damn. I love walnuts!
Thanks for the great information!