Bachelor's Jam

Bright with the flavors of berries and stonefruit, Old Bachelor's Jam is like summer in a bottle. This old-world, fruit-infused liqueur is one of the easiest recipes you can make. When the cold of winter sets in, opening up a bottle of this sweet, fruity liqueur brings back all the memories and flavors of summer.

What is it?

Bachelor's jam is an old-world liqueur made by soaking summer fruit in brandy and sugar. As cherries, berries, peaches, and plums steep in the brandy over several months, they infuse the brandy with their flavor. The result is a sweet, fruit-forward liqueur that's equally delicious served on the rocks as it is spooned over ice cream.

More a technique than a recipe, bachelor's jam is rooted in old French food preservation. In France, the drink is known as Liqueur de Vieux Garçon. Before the advent of refrigeration, people relied on other food preservation techniques that don't require cold temperatures.

Think about how you might use salt to ferment vegetables, sugar to make jam, or vinegar to make pickles. One popular method was to soak the fruit in hard alcohol, such as brandy, vodka, or rum.

It's how thrifty cooks made classics such as brandied cherries and noyaux. And bachelor's jam is just a riff on that same concept.

What's in it?

Bachelor's jam contains three basic ingredients: fruit, sugar, and hard alcohol. You can use just about any summer fruit you like. Berries and stonefruit are particularly good options, and some of the best jam is made by adding fruit to the pot as it comes into season.

• Summer fruit is the heart of Bachelor's Jam. Add fruit to your crock as it comes into season - strawberries in early summer. Cherries and apricots come next followed by peaches, plums, blackberries, and other fruits of late summer.
• Brandy is the hard liquor added to most recipes. It offers a sweet, apple-like flavor that works well with fruit. You can also use other hard liquors as it suits you and both vodka and rum often make an appearance in similar recipes.
• Sugar sweetens the liqueur and also helps to preserve the fruit for long-term storage. Cane sugar is traditionally used, but you can use palm sugar, maple syrup, or even honey if you prefer.

Tips for Making Bachelor's Jam

Making Bachelor's Jam is effortless. The idea behind the recipe is that it's so easy that an old bachelor (presumably with little kitchen skill) would have no trouble making it.

You begin by layering fresh fruit with sugar and then covering it with brandy. As summer would wear on, you'd add new layers of fruit, sugar, and brandy. Letting the fruit infuse into the sugar-sweetened brandy over several months gives the liqueur the best flavor, and the drink often wasn't opened again until winter set in.

To make Bachelor's Jam requires an element of flexibility. You use what's in season and keep the pot going until winter. While it's one of the easiest liqueurs you can make at home, there are a few tips you'll want to keep in mind.

• Embrace flexibility. As long as your fruit is submerged in enough vodka or brandy, it should keep fine. So keep a little room in your jar to add a few new pieces of fruit as they come into season.
• Use ripe, good-tasting fruit. Your liqueur will only taste as good as what you put into it. So use ripe, sweet, flavorful fruit. Use fruit free from soft spots, and avoid fruit that teeters toward over-ripe or spoiled.
• If the fruit floats to the surface, consider weighing it down with glass fermentation weights so that it stays submerged in the alcohol.
• Use a non-reactive lid when sealing the jar. Metal lids may corrode when exposed to alcohol, so use a plastic or other non-reactive lid. If you only have metal lids, line them with a square of wax paper to prevent corrosion.
• Have patience. While you can technically serve the drink just about anytime, wait at least 3 months before trying it for the best flavor. Traditionally, the crock was often opened and the liqueur was shared around Christmastime.

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