Yes – adding water to ethanol will dimish it’s ability to dissolve oil.

hank

In my opinion, berry/fruit liqueurs and aquavits(*) are maybe the alcoholic drinks with greatest potential for making at home. Home-produced beer and wine are commonl, but require lots of specialst skill, experience and knowledge to even come close to the quality of the commercial versions. Extracted spirits, however, are very easy to make and the quality would easily surpass what you buy. Why? I guess that ethanol and sugar are the cheap ingredients, at least for industry, whereas i.e. high quality wild or garden-grown berries are expensive. Hence, according to my taste, these are ofter too sweet and lack flavour and aroma from the berries/fruit.

At home, we produce, almost every year, a batch of lingonberry liqueur or aquavit. The berries are hand-picked in nearby mountaineous areas, and the flavour is packed with berries. Another great spirit is blackberry leaf aquavit:

800 ml blackberry leaves, preferably picked before or during blossoming
700 ml 40% ethanol
4 sugar cubes

Cut the leaves in 2-4 with scissors, leave in the ethanol (closed jar) for two weeks. The recipe says one week in light and one week in the dark (does this make sense?). Filter off the leaves, add sugar cubes and leave for 3-4 months.

Yes, I know – measuring leaves by volume doesn’t seem very reproducible. However, depending on the weather, weight migh be just as inaccurate.

A wonderful golden colour and aroma of blackberries (obviously) and hints of brown spirits.

* Here, I use “aquavits” as a general term for non-sweetened spirits based on extraction. “Dram” is an alternative Norwegian/Danish word. A more proper English term might maybe be schnapps?