The idea popped into my head at the end of my season when I went to a bar in the Lower East Side in Mahattan that used homemade infused vodka for most of it's specialty drinks. After a couple of drinks and a quick question and answer session I made the decision to make my own infussions for my holiday gifts.
When I got back to Wisconsin I did a little bit of independent research on the internet. There are a couple of websites out there that help and many recommended a book called "Viva Vodka" which I picked up at the local library. The book told me basically the same thing that the bartender in NYC told me... making your own infused liquor is really easy.
These are the basics. You can infuse pretty much any liquor but vodka is probably the easiest due to it's neutral flavor. Infusing is as easy as picking the flavors you want, buying the ingredients, adding it to the liquor and waiting for the flavors to "infuse" into the liquor. There are a couple of variations and more intricate recipes but that's really the long and short of it.
I chose to start by trying out raspberry, lemon, ginger, watermelon, pineapple and chili. The book and several websites that I consulted recommended different lengths of time for the infusions, so I checked them daily to make sure that they were ok. The amount of time that you leave it in really affects some infusions and barely affects others. For example... to make lemon vodka the book recommends using the zest or rind of the lemon and letting it infuse for 2-3 days. I let mine sit for almost a week and when I tasted it, it was almost too strong and bitter. The pepper vodka as well is one that needs to be checked for strength almost daily. I soaked habenero, jalepeno and serrano peppers in both vodka and tequila. I left the peppers in the tequila for about 4 days and in the vodka for about 8. The tequila was tolerably spicy, but the vodka was rip-ass hot.... I almost choked! Perfect for bloodys!
The conclusion that I came to is that you can rely on books and the internet for ideas for recipes but you really have to rely on your own taste buds to dictate how long you let it marinate. Some fruits and vegetables flavors just worked better than others. I really liked the ginger, raspberry, vanilla and chili vodkas. I also brewed up a chili tequila that made some killer hot-ritas! I had a harder time with the really sweet fruits (watermelon, pineapple, pomegrantate)... it seemed as if the sugars in the fruit made the vodka go off a little. Guess I'll have to experiment a little with those for next year.
Overall, the infusion experiment went quite well. I created my own labels, slapped it on some imported flip-top bottles and through them in some gift baskets with some mixin's. I made a couple of margarita baskets, a couple bloody mary baskets and the rest I gave out solo. I distributed most of the liquor on Christmas and New Years Eve. The response was pretty damn good. My brother brewed up some hot pomegranate margaritas for some work friends a couple days after Christmas. According to them, they burned like lava but were hard to put down. I mixed up some friends a couple of cranberry vodka cosmos and they were diggin'. But I think that the true testament to the deliciousness of my vodka was that Erin drank so much of it on New Years that she was having a public face-melting makeout jam with D-Money in the middle of the Kitchen. If that not testament to tastyness, I don't know what is!
A couple of the labels that I made for my infusions
1 comment:
Dave this is one of the funniest blog inserts I have ever read........I mean that
The Pirate Fitz
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