Photo by Patty Mitchell
In the last few weeks I have posted my recipe for Homemade Amaretto and Homemade Bailey’s Irish Cream. Just to round it out I figured I better also put up my recipe for Homemade Kahlua.
This recipe came from our good friend from Army days-Randy. He would have all our friends save their dark glass bottles from beer and wine and then make big batches of this to give to friends.
This would make a great frugal gift for the holidays. You could keep a couple of small bottles on hand for hostess gifts or last minute presents. I think they are especially attractive if you dip the head in melted wax. . . very classy.
Big Dog Kahlua
2 C Sugar
2 C Water
3 TBS Instant Coffee (pick something that tastes decent!)
1 Vanilla Bean or 1 TBS Vanilla Extract (preferably real)
2 C Vodka
-Mix water, sugar and instant coffee.
-Simmer until sugar is dissolved.
-Cool completely.
-Stir in in Vanilla and Vodka and pour into a dark bottle to age.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pmitchell/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
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Bookmarked. 😉
Seriously, I’ve been looking for a tried and true version of this. My mom is going to be thrilled.
I would like to know about leaving the alcohol out of these recipes. would i need to sub something else-maybe more water or just leave the vodka, etc out.
Heather~glad to be of help 🙂
Linda~The recipes for Amaretto and Kahlua are really just for a flavored alcohol. I’ve never tried substituting something else like water-my gut instinct is that it wouldn’t taste very good. In the case of Kahlua if you are looking for something to sip that is no alcoholic then maybe you could just make a cold flavored coffee. Is your intent to use it as a sipping drink or as an ingredient in other recipes? If it’s an ingredient (which usually means it is being used just for flavor) then you could probably make it with water, or coffee and something like rum flavored extract. . . again, haven’t tried it personally
OH MY GOSH thank you so much for this recipe! I love these kinds of drinks and was wondering what to make for folks for the holidays… now I know!
Thanks for the photo credit.
If your readers are interested, I also have a recipe for homemade Italian limoncello that’s quite popular. Here’s the link
http://patty.vox.com/library/post/homemade-limoncello-when-life-gives-you-lemons.html
This is a great idea for holiday gifts! This year I am trying to get out of debt and recipes like these help with holiday gift giving! Thanks for the great post.
Planning on doing this for the holidays. Thanks for your recipe. How do you seal the bottles…cork? screw tops? then what type of wax do you use to top them off?
Glad everyone is enjoying the recipe! I hope you like it as much as we do.
Melisa-As far as sealing: Our friend Randy just did screw caps. The last time I did them up fancy I used corks (which can be hard to find sometimes). I melted paraffin wax (from the canning aisle) in a double boiler and added a red crayon to die the wax a color. Then I did the whole “dip & cool, dip & cool” thing until I felt the wax was deep enough. To be extra fancy I pressed a star shaped pin I had down into the top to make an impression 🙂
I made kahlua a few years ago, and used Grolsch beer bottles- The resealable ones. They worked great, and luckily I have some left, so I am trying your recipe this year. Thanks!
Thank you for the recipe. I was wondering…how long does this need to age prior to drinking?
Jeanne-Hmmm, that is something I should know, eh? We usually keep it in a cool dark place for about 3 months, but online I saw everything from “enjoy immediately” to “let age 1 month”. . .
Could you suggest a type of bottle to use and where I would find them? Do they need to be a dark bottle?
We used dark beer bottles that we washed & repurposed–then we corked them. You could check a local homebrew shop for all sorts of amber bottles.