How to Infuse Your Own Liquor
Want an easy way to impress your friends at your next party? Try infusing your own liquor with different flavors – mix and match to create your perfect cocktail invention! Due to some awesome sales at my local grocery store, I decided on strawberry and blueberry infused vodkas. The great thing about berry vodkas is that you can mix them with just about anything – various sodas, juices, even other liquors.
While they recommend to let your infusion sit for several weeks, once the berries have lost their color, they’ve lost most of their flavor as well. So even though I might leave them in there for a couple weeks, after the first few days my vodka is already rich with the color and flavor of whatever berries I happen to be infusing. Mix a bit with some lemonade and you’ve got yourself a berry lemonade cocktail, add a splash of something fizzy if you’re feelin’ sparkly.
How to Infuse Your Own Vodka (or other liquor):
What you will need:
- Berries, washed and diced
- Vodka (or other liquor – make sure it’s relatively neutral in flavor)
- Nonreactive container, like a glass mason jar or bottle.
1. Fill your container about 1/3 with washed berries of your choice
2. Fill it the rest of the way with liquor
3. Set in a cool place (I use our fridge, because “room temp” at our house is like 78 degrees).
4. Shake it around once in a while
Some things to know…
* The smaller you chop your fruit (like strawberries, pineapple, or melon), the faster your liquor will infuse. Blueberries don’t need to be chopped, but you will probably want to score them with a knife (or just muddle them a bit). Blackberries and things of that nature are OK to stay whole. With citrus, it’s best to just use the rind, but make sure you don’t get any of the pith (white stuff) with it!
* Shake your container every day or couple days to mix it up a bit.
* Once your liquor has infused, strain out your fruit for permanent storage.
* If you want to make a “liquer” instead of “liquor” – after you remove your berries add some simple syrup (anywhere from 1/4 – 1/2 of your mixture, depending on how sweet you want it to be).
* Since I like to re-use things, I re-use washed grapefruit jars. This caused my BF to make fun of me for making “moonshine”… just be forewarned that if you use a jar someone may make fun of you and call it “moonshine”. If this happens, tell them to “shut it” and promptly make yourself a cocktail. 🙂
* I usually try to let them infuse for about a week or two, but I’ve been known to make a drink after just a day or so of infusion at the end of an especially rough day. So long as there is a good amount of color in the vodka, you should be ok
* DO NOT try to eat the fruit, all of its flavor is now in the liquor. This isn’t sangria, people.
