Homemade Peppermint Liqueur

Sugar syrup flavoured with peppermint oil and coloured green, then combined with brandy. It is a homemade version of peppermint schnapps, and it is an alcoholic spirit rather than a soft drink. Nothing about it is African. Peppermint schnapps is a European and North American drink, most strongly associated with the winter holidays in the United States, where it is drunk as a shot or mixed into creamy cocktails. Commercially it is made by adding peppermint flavouring to a clear grain spirit; this domestic version uses brandy instead, which gives a warmer and less neutral result. The source attributes its invention to a Parisian confectioner around 1810 and credits Napoleon's second wife with carrying the recipe to Austria. That story is repeated in a number of places and is not documented in any reliable source. It is recorded here as a claim rather than as fact. Two practical warnings. This is a strong spirit, the brandy is not cooked off, since it goes in after the syrup has cooled, so treat it accordingly. And it contains green food colouring, which is purely cosmetic and can simply be left out.