MAKES ABOUT 1 QUART/1 L
In Galicia, aguardiente—a clear and potent spirit distilled from grape pressings like Italian grappa and French marc—is commonly used to make some wonderful home liqueurs. Licor de hierbas, infused with a dozen aromatic herbs, is a brilliant, emerald-yellowish drink. Around the area of Ourense, not far from the northern Portuguese border, the most famous and popular home licor is prepared with coffee. Sweetened with sugar and aromatized with cinnamon and orange peel, the taste of the coffee comes through, so choose the roast with care. Some people add in a piece of dark chocolate for its seductive cacao notes.
Aficionados recommend letting it reposar (rest) for at least one year before drinking, but a few weeks after filtering the mixture into a bottle is all it lasts in our home before I start sipping it. Normally it is drunk very cold, often in squat chupito (shot) glasses taken from the freezer. Nonconformists, though, have been known to add a shot of it to a cortado, an espresso cut with a bit of hot milk.
1. In a saucepan, bring ¾ cup/180 ml water to a boil. Add the sugar, stir until it dissolves, and then let boil for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat, and stir in the coffee until dissolved. Add the orange peel and cinnamon stick, and let cool for a few minutes before pouring in the aguardiente. Stir to blend, and let completely cool.
2. Cover and let sit for 7 to 10 days, stirring one or two times each day.
3. Filter the liqueur through a paper coffee filter, change the filter, and filter a second time. Pour into one or two sterilized glass bottles.
4. Store in a dry, cool, and dark place for 6 months, or until the liquid takes on a deep, rich coffee flavor.
5. Place in the freezer at least 2 to 3 hours before serving. Serve very cold, ideally between 46° and 50°F/8° and 10°C, in small glasses.
The word aguardiente means “burning water,” and sipping the potent spirit, it often feels just like that. (Or, more specifically, like “water that burns.”) Aguardiente is a high-grade alcohol distilled from orujos, the pressing of grape skins, seeds, and stalks. In Italy, this pomace brandy is called grappa, and in France eau-de-vie de marc or just marc. In parts of Spain, it goes by the name aguardiente de orujo, or just aguardiente, or just orujo.
In Spain, such spirits have a lengthy tradition. It began after the Arabs in Spain taught the locals the principles of alcohol distillation sometime in the ninth century. Today, orujos are most typical in two regions. The first is the valley of Liébana, in the southwest of Cantabria, with production centered around the town of Potes. This is an area that produces little wine—and not such great wine, at that—but very good orujo. Distilled at low temperature, the orujos from Liébana are smooth and flavorful, even elegant.
The second region is Galicia. An orujo gallego is usually called aguardiente (or, in Galician, aguardente). Some are plain, others infused with herbs. There are aged aguardientes, too, called envejecidos, which have an amber color and smoother bite.
While some like a shot of it in the morning for strength more than flavor—they call it matar el bicho, literally “to kill the bug”—aguardiente is generally drunk as a digestivo after a meal. It should be at room temperature, or slightly warmed in the hands, to fully appreciate its flavors and aromas (often recalling grapes). The water-clear spirit can also be mixed with sorbets, especially lemon; added to pastry dough; or dashed into an espresso. Around Ourense, it is the base for making homemade licor de café, a popular regional coffee liqueur (see facing page).
Aguardiente is also an excellent and typical preserver for fruits. In Galicia, cherries (see page 320) and their more acidic counterpart, guindillas, are favorites to conserve this way with some cinnamon and coffee beans. Sometimes in the center of the country you find trout in aguardiente. In the Catalan Pyrenees, aguardiente is blended with grated aged cheese and fermented in earthenware pots into an emblematic mountain cheese called tupí. Soft and spreadable, a touch greasy, and highly aromatic, rustic tupí carries a heady mountain snap.
Clearly, many homemade preparations use the spirit—and sometimes even the aguardiente is homemade. Both Galicia and Potes have a tradition of home-distilled orujos. Some of them are even smooth. Most, though, are pure burning water.