Krupnik: A Polish Honey Liqueur

Every year in Cleveland, there is an annual celebration of Dyngus Day featuring a parade and plenty of polka.  In addition, the traditions of crowning of Miss Dyngus, the tradition of throwing water  on girls and spanking each other with pussywillows remains alive and well.   The celebration is frequently accompanied by delicious Polish food and drinks.   In digging into the traditions, I uncovered another traditional Polish drink, Krupnik.

Sadly, Ohio is a state controlled liquor authority, and with no readily available Krupnik for purchase, so I decided to make my own.

Krupnik

The Polish Housewife provided the basic template for this recipe, and I consulted other sources to modify it to our taste.   We ended up increasing the vanilla to round out the profile and added a little more allspice to keep it lively.  While we stuck with lemon, orange appears to also be acceptable.  The template for Krupnik is very much a personal choice, but this is our recipe going forward for cocktails.

Ingredients:

• 500 g Honey
• 500 g Vodka
• ½ Vanilla Bean – Split and Scraped
• 5 g Cinnamon Stick (approx. 1 medium stick)
• 2 Allspice Berries (lightly crushed)
• 2 Whole Cloves
• ½ a Lemon of zest removed in strips with a vegetable peeler.
• Over Proof Neutral Grain Spirit (optional)

Equipment:

• Medium sauce pan
• Spoon
• Vegetable Peeler
• Coffee Filter
• Chinois
• Funnel (Optional)

Directions:

1. In a medium sauce pan, combine honey, vanilla bean, cinnamon, all spice berries, cloves, and lemon zest.  Over low heat, bring the honey gently to a simmer, stirring occasional.
2. Simmer for 10 minutes, removing from heat if the honey begins to foam excessively.  Stir frequently to avoid burning.
3. Remove from heat and add vodka while stirring.  The vodka will steam and begin to boil off.
4. Allow to steep for 2 hours.
5. Before filtering, ensure you sanitize the bottle.  Rinse with over proof neutral grain spirit. boil the bottle, or use a food grade sanitizer.
6. Using a chinois and coffee filter, strain the steeped liqueur into a clean bottle.  Depending on the size of your filter, it may take multiple batches.  A funnel will also help improve this experience.
7. Serve warm or cover and refrigerate.

The resulting liqueur is, unsurprisingly, incredibly sweet.  That sweetness provides a richness of alluring honey, baking spices, perfumed vanilla pastry, and touches of citrus.  The spicing with this mix, and slight bitterness of the lemon makes the end product decidedly tea-like.  As a result, it pairs particularly well with orange.

Krupnik Liqueur Notes:

Krupnik is fairly simple to make, and you shouldn’t experience too many issues.   In general, the most challenging points are heating the honey, where you should avoid heating quickly or at high heat.  The other difficulty you’re like to experience is straining through the coffee filter.   If the filter clogs, you can always use another to help speed up the process.

In terms of Krupnik itself, be aware – it is sweet.  Very sweet.  Like syrupy sweet.  Despite the high sweetness, the flavors are extraordinarily well balanced.  The infusion of the spices in the warmed honey produces an almost baklava like character to finished liqueur.  The spice ends up being almost tea like.

You can also adjust the sweetness by switching out a portion of the honey with water.   Please note that all of the cocktail specifications we use are based off this recipe.

Vodka selection is only semi important here.  Pick a vodka you like, but given the amount of honey, don’t feel obligated to use the most prestigious or expensive bottle you can find.  We used Sobieski for ours (which is Polish!) and found it worked excellently.

A final notes on storage.  While there is no set time frame on how long Krupnik will remain good for, it’s worth noting that the amount of sugar is almost 1:1 with the alcohol.  The net result would be more than 50% sugar (thanks to the evaporation of the alcohol), and have a relatively high proof (most likely somewhere in the ballpark of 15-20%).  Expect the Krupnik to keep fairly well while refrigerated, but dispose of it if you see any mold or clouding develops.