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1
Place the fennel seed, cocoa nibs, roasted barley, vanilla bean scrapings, cassia chips, cloves, and cardamom pods in a 1 qt.
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2
mason jar.
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3
Add 1/3 cup of everclear.
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4
Place lid on jar and agitate to mix.
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5
This is the spice jar.
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6
Place the gentian root, quassia bark chips, and walnut leaves in a 1 qt.
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7
mason jar.
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8
Add 1/3 cup of rye whiskey.
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9
Place lid on jar and agitate to mix.
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10
This is the bitter jar.
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11
Place maple syrup in 1 quart mason jar.
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12
Add remaining 1/2 cup of rye whiskey.
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13
Place lid on jar and agitate to mix.
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14
This is your flavor jar.
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15
Place the jars in an area that is room temperature, preferably out of the light.
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16
Agitate the jars daily for two weeks.
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17
After the two weeks has passed, strain the ingredients from your spice jar and your bitter jar (separately) using cheese cloth or a fine mesh sieve to get out the large ingredient particles, and then strain each jars contents again (separately) with more cheese cloth or a coffee filter to get out the small particles.
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18
After filtering, it is time to combine the the leftover spirits from the three jars.
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19
There are two ways to do this: (A) The careful method: Combine the spirits from the three jars a bit at a time into a fourth jar so that you can play with the proportions to achieve exactly the flavor you want (this is the preferred method...add ingredients from each until all three flavor profiles are pronounced when tasting a few drops); OR (B) The caution to the wind method: Combine all spirits from the spice jar and the bitter jar into the flavor jar and mix together thoroughly.
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20
The careful method allows you to adjust the flavor to your desired preference.
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21
The caution to the wind method makes mixing simple, but may result in a bitter mixture with a very strong spice flavor (to the point of overpowering the maple and bitter flavors).
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22
Place the final mixture into brown dropper bottles or similar dispensing device to make it easier to add small amounts to cocktails.
