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Last weekend, I bought a bottle of passion fruit jenever. Normally, this tastes very sweet and has a nice fruity flavour. But unfortunately, I had to buy a brand with which I'm not familiar with. The taste of the alcohol is too present and it has an after taste that reminds me of medicine.

I don't want to throw away my bottle, but I won't drink it like that. Can I add something that would make it better? I don't want a cocktail (but 2 things together is de facto a cocktail I guess). I was thinking of adding a bit of grenadine or (flavoured) sugar syrup.

Would this help or does anyone knows something that helps?

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5 Answers 5

As alcohol boils away quite easily, perhaps you could try simmering it a while to remove some of the alchohol taste? Try it with a glassful first to see if it works.

You might try adding some passion fruit pulp (strained through a sieve to remove the pips) to increase the fruitiness.

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Not a bad idea but you wouldn't even need to boil it. 173F will boil the alcohol and not the water. –  Sobachatina Mar 30 '11 at 0:52
There's not a lot of taste in alcohol. I think the "alcoholic taste" referred to comes from compounds formed during a maturation step, rather than alcohol itself. I have a bottle of "bad" jenever that has been dodging around my kitchen for 3 years waiting for an answer. I think it is going down the toilet if we don't get a good answer here! –  klypos Jun 7 '11 at 21:01

I think it might be improved by adding Creme de Cassis (or Creme de Mures Sauvages if you can get some).

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Try adding fruit zest (grapefruit, orange, lemon or lime), with a touch of castor sugar. I don't think its the proof that is ruining the taste, but more likely the quality of the grain base spirit used. Sugar and oils should help counteract this.

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Perhaps you could try making a long cocktail with the addition of sparkling water and simple or flavored syrup.

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Genever is an older form of Gin. Take a look at old gin cocktails from the prohibition era, many of those were designed to cover up the flavour of bad (bathtub) gin.

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Interesting idea, the answer would be even more useful if you provided the names of such cocktails - when I look at a gin cocktail recipe, I have no idea when it was created. –  rumtscho Feb 29 '12 at 21:19

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