Blog, Booze Recipes, Recipe Box, Sweet Stuff Recipes

Recipe Box: Creamy Coconut Cordial

Amber Shehan May 21, 2015

So, here’s another mad kitchen-science experiment that has been a consistent success in our home – creamy coconut cordial. A few years ago, my housemate and I experimented with a very intriguing recipe that we found from TheKitchn. While we’d made cordials, tinctures, and elixirs before, we had never tried doing a milk-based booze drink from…

Coconut cream cordial recipe from pixiespocket.com

So, here’s another mad kitchen-science experiment that has been a consistent success in our home – creamy coconut cordial.

A few years ago, my housemate and I experimented with a very intriguing recipe that we found from TheKitchn. While we’d made cordials, tinctures, and elixirs before, we had never tried doing a milk-based booze drink from scratch.

It takes a minute to deal with the idea of making boozy drinks with milk. Milk curdles and goes all chunky when you add it to straight alcohol! Curdles are bad….right? Not in this case! Don’t worry…there is a lot of straining involved in the final stages of the process to get the milk proteins free from the booze for a more pleasant drinking experience.

diy booze!

Don’t like coconut? Add any flavorings you like!

The first time we tried this recipe, we happened to have a fresh coconut which we chopped open, cut apart, and then roasted the tender flesh to add to the milk liqueur. But that is quite a bit of work, so I have discovered an easier way to recreate our delicious, coconutty twist on the milk liqueur recipe!

Creamy Coconut Cordial

This recipe will result in only about 1 cup or so of booze…but it is a great place to start to learn the process. If you enjoy it, just up the amounts! It is always equal part vodka, milk, and sugar…the rest is up to your tastes. 

1/2 cup or so of dried, unsweetened coconut flakes
1 cup of vodka
1 cup of milk
1 cup of sugar

  • Grab a jar that will fit 4 cups and pour in the dried coconut flakes.
  • Add in vodka, milk, and sugar until the jar is full and the flakes are covered.
  • Put a lid on the jar and give it a really good shake!
  • Set it in a dark cabinet for ten days and leave it alone. It will curdle, separate, and look disgusting, but I promise it will all turn out fine.
  • Ready? Get a few jars and a funnel, and cheesecloth. Strain the liquid over and over and over from jar to jar until there are no longer any milk proteins and the cordial is rather clear. The coconut doesn’t go all the way clear due to the oil content, as you can see in the image.
  • That’s it!  Enjoy!


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Amber Shehan

Hi! I'm Amber Pixie, and this is my site. Enjoy the recipes, information, posts, and please feel free to message me if you have questions!

15 Comments

  1. justin on May 21, 2015 at 11:18 am

    Sounds interesting. I’ve done something really similar to this using coconut water/milk, but not cow’s milk. I’ll have to give this a try, thanks for sharing!

    • Amber Shehan on May 21, 2015 at 11:20 am

      Oooh, I’ll have to try playing with coconut milk to see what happens! The milk liqueur thing is odd but awesome – and takes any flavors well! Try an orange slice and vanilla bean, or berries, instead of coconut for a totally different experience!

    • Aniko on May 21, 2015 at 11:39 am

      Did the coconut milk recipe turn out? Where did you find the recipe? I was just thinking about how I’d like to make a non-cow-milk version of this! Looks wonderful.

    • Heidi Casavant on August 31, 2019 at 12:18 pm

      Looking forward to making this.
      What is the shelf life

      • Amber Pixie on September 3, 2019 at 6:32 pm

        I haven’t kept a bottle of this around longer than six months, so can’t say for sure beyond that point! Once you’ve strained all of the milk solids out it seems to keep just fine in a dark cabinet.

  2. Eileen on May 21, 2015 at 2:42 pm

    Wow, what an intriguing recipe! I bet a shot of this would be amazing in a cup of strong, hot spiced chai.

    • Amber Shehan on May 26, 2015 at 1:49 pm

      Wow, that’s a GREAT idea…can’t believe I haven’t tried that before!!!

  3. Adriana on September 1, 2015 at 4:36 pm

    I have to agree with Eileen, it does sound intriguing! I’m all for experiments, I’ll have to give this a try.:)

  4. Tet on June 23, 2016 at 8:18 pm

    Would it be possible to use Erythritol or Xylitol in place of the sugar?

    • Amber Shehan on June 24, 2016 at 12:10 pm

      That’s a good question, Tet! I don’t use those myself, so haven’t tested it out. In this recipe, the vodka *should* be sufficient enough to keep it all from going bad, but I don’t know for sure. I’d also keep in mind that you might not want to do equal parts, since xylitol is a little sweeter than sugar, isn’t it?

      Sounds like a good excuse for an experiment!

  5. Robin on May 26, 2019 at 6:58 pm

    WoW it sounds interesting. Have you ever tried Almond milk in place of dairy? Thanks

    • Amber Pixie on May 30, 2019 at 9:55 pm

      I have not tried any dairy alternatives, so I’m not sure how it would go! If you try it, let me know what happens! 😀

  6. Judy on March 8, 2020 at 4:28 pm

    I will have to give this a try. I have made milk liqueurs for years but have only used citrus fruits..but this coconut sounds wonderful.

  7. BethAnne Linstra Klein on May 5, 2021 at 10:36 am

    I made the coconut cordial and left it sitting in the cupboard for ten days, but it doesn’t seem to be curdling. It just looks like milk with little bits of coconut floating in it. Is it because I used rum? Should I leave it longer? Should I drink it now?

  8. Mary McClain on September 22, 2022 at 12:38 am

    Mine turned out the same way. I used vodka, so that isn’t the problem. It just looks like milk with coconut floating on top.

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