Load a recipe or enter your own spirit, syrup and water to see the strength and sugar of your liqueur. Build a Liqueur and Syrup are free; Pro adds Hit a Target, Blend, Scale and 144 more recipes. Browse all 169 liqueur recipes.
Educational content. These tools do arithmetic on spirit, syrup, sugar and water; results are estimates. Juice released by fruit and the shrinkage of alcohol and water when mixed are not counted, so a fruit liqueur comes out a little weaker. Spirit above 70% is never drunk neat, and 95% spirit catches fire easily: keep it away from flames. For adults 21+. Disclaimer
Choosing a recipe shows its ingredients, method and estimate, and fills in the spirit and syrup below. You can also type in your own amounts.
The strained steep, any extra spirit, wine or vermouth: volume and strength of each. If you measured the strained steep before any sugar went in, enter that strength instead.
Pick a syrup from the recipes or enter its sugar per liter. Sugar dissolved straight into the water counts separately.
You get the volume, the strength, the sugar per liter and where that sits against the EU liqueur minimums.
"Save" keeps the recipe and every tab you calculated in one entry (free plan: up to 3). "Download PDF" gives you a printable sheet.
ABV: alcohol by volume. g/L: grams of sugar per liter of finished liqueur. °Brix: grams of sugar in 100 g of syrup. An ordinary alcohol meter reads too low in a sweet liqueur, so the strength here is calculated, not measured.
Spirit, syrup and water in; volume, strength and sugar out.
The formulas and worked examples: Home Infusions & Liqueurs Science, chapter 6 →
The sugar and water you have, cups of each by volume, or the volume and °Brix of syrup you need.
You get the °Brix, the volume of syrup and the sugar per liter, or how much sugar and water to use.
"Use this syrup in Build a Liqueur" carries the volume and sugar per liter over.
How strong your syrup is, how much you get, and how much sugar and water a given syrup takes.
Syrups, °Brix and sugar by volume: Home Infusions & Liqueurs Science, chapter 5 →
Its volume and strength.
For example 40% and 320 g/L for a limoncello like the one in the Locatelli study.
Sugar dissolved in the water, or a syrup. You get the sugar or syrup and the water to add, and the final volume.
Start from the steep and the liqueur you want: how much sugar or syrup and water to add.
Building a liqueur to a target: Home Infusions & Liqueurs Science, chapter 6 →
Start from your steep and the strength and sugar you want: get the sugar or syrup and the water to add. This is an Infusions & Liqueurs Pro feature.
Unlock with Pro — $6/moEnter the volume, strength and sugar of each part, for example a first and a second pour, to get the strength and sugar of the mix.
How much of a second liquid (water, spirit or another liqueur) to add to reach a target strength.
Combine liqueurs or steeps, or bring a blend to a target strength.
Two pours and correcting a blend: Home Infusions & Liqueurs Science, chapters 4 and 9 →
Work out the strength and sugar of a mix of liqueurs or steeps, or how much of a second liquid brings a blend to a target strength. This is an Infusions & Liqueurs Pro feature.
Unlock with Pro — $6/moA recipe from Build a Liqueur fills in its ingredients and yield. You can also type your own.
Every amount is multiplied by the same factor, so strength and sugar per liter stay the same.
Steeping time does not scale with volume: taste as the recipe says.
Make more or less of a recipe with the same strength and sugar.
Scaling through one liter: Home Infusions & Liqueurs Science, chapter 6 →
Make more or less of any recipe with the same strength and sugar per liter. This is an Infusions & Liqueurs Pro feature.
Unlock with Pro — $6/moThe science behind every number here: the base spirit, extraction, steeping time, sugar and syrups, strength and sugar math, clarity, color, storage and safety, built on published sources. The Guide takes your first batch from an empty jar to the bottle.