Beer gummies are my new favorite party trick. I have a whole post here about the agony and ecstasy of my boozy gummy bear journey. But this post is all about my new favorite gummy. My husband had a particularly choice bottle of Bourbon County Stout from 2013 that needed drinking. Unfortunately he happened to mention that right at the exact moment I was trying to figure out what type of alcoholic gummy bears I wanted to make for New Year’s Eve.
Beer Gummies-Surprise! They’re Delicious.
So I managed to talk him out of 4 oz. of this precious beer for my experiment. Boy are we glad I did. These taste SO GOOD. You wouldn’t think beer gummies would be anything beyond a drunken dare, but the sweet, smooth, smoky flavor of the beer plays just right with the sweetness and texture of the gummies. And this is a perfect way to share one precious bottle with a whole bunch of people because just 4 oz. will make over 1oo gummy bears! I think it would be fun to make a batch of several different beers and then do a little tasting of each kind before your guests decide which beer they want to drink. Fun!
This recipe will work with any beer. I think you could also adapt this recipe to your favorite cocktail, spirit, or liqueur. I’m thinking of trying some Negroni ones. And maybe a batch with the new Absolut flavor: Wild Tea and Elderflower. I think the sky’s the limit! The only special equipment you need to make these are the molds. You can order a set of molds with a dropper here
These are so simple. They really take less than a half an hour from start to finish. You could be mixing these up at 4:30 and popping them into your mouth at 5:00. And it’s got to be five o’clock somewhere. Cheers!
More Alcohol-Inspired Treats From Bakers Brigade:
- How To Make Alcoholic Gummy Bears From Scratch
- Salted Mezcal Caramels
- Campari Cake With a Negroni and Blood Orange Filling
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- 4 ounces bourbon barrel-aged stout or any adult beverage you like!
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 3 packets unflavored gelatin Knox brand
Ingredients
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- In a medium saucepan, stir the gelatin and sugar until well combined. Add the stout and stir until smooth.
- Heat over medium-low heat until the gelatin and sugar have dissolved. If you want to keep all the alcohol, use a candy thermometer to keep your mixture under 90 degrees F.
- Once dissolved, use an eye dropper (included with the molds), to fill each gummy bear cavity. This recipe will fill two 50-bear molds.
- Put in the fridge for at least 15 minutes to set, up to overnight. Unmold and refrigerate in an airtight container until ready to serve. Keeps for about a week.
I tried this recipe today; while the gummies tasted great, the gelatin never completely dissolved, and the final product came out just a little too hard. Maybe increase the liquid a drop for this recipe. 5 or 6 of stout.
I made these alcoholic gummies for Halloween in a spider shape in four different flavors. I would definitely recommend doing a test batch first if you’ve never made them before, which I just didn’t have time to do with so much other stuff to do for Halloween. They definitely took far longer than a half-hour per flavor to make, but part of the reason is that I multiplied the recipe times seven for each flavor because I needed that many (spiders are much larger than bears and one recipe only filled one-and-a-half molds; one mold is only sixteen spiders). If you are multiplying the recipe and trying to keep the temperature under 90° to keep the alcohol, my tip is to put the pot back on the heat for a couple minutes after you fill each mold tray otherwise it sets in the pot. If it does set, you can heat it up to make it liquid again, but probably not while keeping it under 90° as it took 125° with a lid on to get mine to go from a pot of gummy back to the liquid recipe, so unfortunately the alcohol did cook off in that batch (the ones I did before reheating had a noticeably greater amount of alcohol in them than the ones that were made after). By the third batch, I had it down pat, but I hate that my first batch was kind of ruined and I don’t have time to fix it. I made Fireball Whisky, Apple Wine, Blackberry Wine, and Cream Sherry gummy spiders. They’re yummy (although I wouldn’t recommend the apple wine, but it was a gift from someone a while back and I’m pairing these with caramel apple cupcakes with cinnamon buttercream, so the Fireball and Apple Wine gummies go with that even though the wine is lacking in taste). I couldn’t find a silicone spider mold that would work, so I had to use a plastic mold made for candy/chocolate making. It worked perfectly, although the gummies don’t just fall/pop out like they may from a silicone tray; I had to remove each spider by grabbing them out of the mold by the thorax, which was simple but time-consuming when you’re making as many (seven mold trays per each of the four recipes) as I did. Oh, and they begin to set right away, so if I needed to add a bit more than one eyedropper full per spider, I had to do it before I did the third row on the mold if it was on the first row. I did still refrigerate them for a half-hour just to be sure, then I removed them and placed them in clear favor bags (nine per bag, three rows of three, “Space Invader” style). I’m looking forward to people enjoying them!
Thanks for this thorough review! Yes, it will definitely take longer when you scale it up like that. Also, please invite me to your next Halloween party.
What size or how many grams were the Knox gelatin packages?
Each packet is 1/4 ounce 🙂