Sinful Dark Chocolate Moonshine Recipe
Make velvety smooth and deliciously creamy dark chocolate moonshine with this easy to follow recipe.
When you think of drinking moonshine, what images usually come to mind? Most people are probably picturing sippin’ some strong whiskey. However, the truth is, moonshine can be infused with whichever flavor you like, including chocolate.
So how does chocolate pair with moonshine? The easy answer is dangerously well.
When you infuse moonshine with chocolate the result is sweet, creamy and deceptive.
In fact, if you didn’t know the infusion included moonshine you could find yourself in a world of trouble very fast.
After all, this delicious drink tastes more like a rich chocolate ganache or the best hot chocolate you have ever had. Combining this amazing flavor profile with the power of moonshine is a great option if you want a delicious pick me up. Just be sure not to overindulge.
Pick your Favorite Chocolate to Make it Your Own
We used dark chocolate for this recipe since it is a personal favorite. However, it is not everyone’s cup of tea. Dark chocolate can easily be swapped out for milk chocolate or even white chocolate to customize this moonshine to your tastes.
Can you Make Moonshine out of Chocolate?
The short answer is probably, but the long answer is you probably shouldn’t. While moonshine is normally made from corn, or other grains, it can be made from almost anything.
In fact any food that can be converted into fermentable sugar can be used as a base for moonshine. While it is likely you could make moonshine from chocolate if the sugar content was high enough, it will likely not produce desirable results.
Instead, we would recommend using a sugar shine as your base for this recipe. The reason for this is that when you infuse your moonshine you will usually not actually taste the moonshine.
For this reason, it does not make sense to use shine that was made with expensive ingredients or blended to attain a specific taste. Instead, we would recommend using a moonshine base that is inexpensive and easy since you are not likely to taste the spirit in the final product.
What are the Benefits of Using Sugar Shine?
It makes sense to use sugar shine when you are infusing your moonshine to create different flavored spirits. Not only is sugar shine inexpensive (one gallon costs about $5 to make) it is also a much simpler process to both cook the mash and distill the moonshine.
Check out our sugar shine recipe!
When using grains as the base of your moonshine, you need to cook the grains to break them down in order to achieve a mash conversion. This process can be lengthy, but is necessary in order to convert your grains from a starch to fermentable sugar.
With sugar shine, this process is not required since you are starting with sugar. Instead, all you need to do is dissolve your sugar in gently boiling water, cool it to 70°F and add yeast.
A Simple Distilling Process
Traditional moonshine mash recipes need to be fractionated during the distillation process. This is necessary in order to avoid ingesting any by products that are created during the moonshine process.
Many are wary of making or drinking moonshine because they worry about the dangers of ingesting methanol. While this is a valid concern, fractionating your moonshine is a simple way to avoid this possibility. Fractionating is done by closely monitoring the temperature during the output of distillation.
However, distilling sugar does not produce these by-products. Instead of closely monitoring temperature during the distillation process you can simply fill up your moonshine vessels and enjoy the final results.
The Easiest Way to Distill
Using an air still, like our Moonshine Cherry Air Still makes the distillation process even easier. While most stills require you to have a heat and water source, the Mist has a plug and play design.
Instead of watching the temperature closely and using water pumps to cool your still you can plug in your Moonshine Cherry Air Still and simply press a button to get started quickly and easily. The Cherry also does not require any water to distill so it is perfect for the cottage, trailer, boat or for those who are water conscious.
It is for these reasons we choose to use sugar shine distilled with the Moonshine Cherry Air Still as the base.
Easy to Make Sugar Shine Recipe
Get your Moonshine Cherry Air Still
This recipe will make enough sugar shine to infuse about 1 gallon of moonshine. A great trick is to use this recipe to make many different flavor infusions and fill your bar with delicious spirits for less.
Moonshine Ingredients:
- 13 cups of filtered water
- 1 kg of sugar
- One packet of bread yeast
Moonshine Equipment:
- Cooking thermometer
- Fermentation vessel with airlock
- Moonshine Cherry Air Still
Sugar Shine Recipe Instructions:
- Add 8 cups of filtered water to a pot and boil gently. Avoid a rolling boil and try not to exceed 120°F.
- Reserve 2 TSP of sugar for your yeast starter
- Add the rest of the sugar a little bit at a time. Stir to dissolve and then add more.
- Once all of the sugar is dissolved, turn off the heat. Let sit while you prepare your yeast starter.
To Make your Yeast Starter:
- ½ cup warm water
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1 package of yeast
- Add warm water and sugar to a small bowl and whisk to dissolve sugar.
- Once the sugar is dissolved, add the package of bread yeast.
- Stir well to incorporate.
- Once the mixture is well incorporated, cover with plastic wrap and a dish towel to keep warm.
- Let sit while you cool your sugar mash.
Cooling your Mash
- Place your sugar shine into a larger bowl (or sink) of ice water to cool it. Take it out once the temperature reaches about 85 °F.
- Add five cups of cold filtered water to your fermenting vessel.
- Add your sugar shine mash
- Add your yeast starter
- Place the lid on the fermenting vessel and shake well for about 10 seconds.
- Put water in your airlock and place it on the lid of your fermenting vessel
- Allow to ferment until all activity stops in the airlock. This usually takes about two weeks.
Once all activity has stopped in the airlock, you can pour your mash into your air still to ferment. This process takes about two hours.
Distilling your Mash :
Once all activity has stopped in the airlock, you can pour your mash into your air still to ferment.
Press the green button to start.
This process takes about two hours.
