Alcohol Infusions

WARNING: If you are younger than 21 years of age, stop reading now! Alcohol is gross and uncool. In other words, it's not trending. You won't like it!

If you are older than 21 years of age, have I got a craft for you!

If you've ever been to a speakeasy (or a place masquerading as a speakeasy), you know that infused alcohols are their bread and butter. One of them probably even has bread and butter infused whiskey. 

When you read the menu, it's elderflower liquor this, apple rum that. Then they mix these fancy alcohols with some other lofty ingredients and charge you 15$. 

Thanks bartender man. I'm sure this exorbitant price helps put the wax on that handlebar moustache of yours.

The good news is that once you spend most of your hard-earned money on fancy drinks, you only need a little bit more to replicate the experience at home, Craftertaste-style.

Keep your speaking as easy as your listening with alcohol infusions!

Ingredients

Alcohol of your choosing

Infusion material (fruit, seeds, whole spices, non-toxic flowers, teas, etc.)

Mason jar

Funnel

Coffee filters

Glass bottles with air-tight caps

(See below for recipe ideas)

Does this already seem like a bad idea? I suggest hitting the bottle, and then reading onward. Inhibitions: lowered.

The idea here is simple. Let your ingredients soak in the alcohol to release any water/alcohol-soluble flavorants inside the mason jar. Then pour the entire mixture into a coffee filter lined funnel (to separate out the non-drinkable components) and into a glass bottle for storage.

The key factors controlling how strong the infused flavor presents itself in the alcohol are (1) the amount of infusion ingredient, (2) exposed surface area of the infusion ingredient, and (3) the incubation time. Striking a balance between these factors can be somewhat challenging. But once you find that balance, you'll see it was well worth the trial and error.

Here are a few recipes I came up with after drinking the failed attempts:

Orange and Ginger Vodka

- Peel from 1/2 an orange, in long strips

- 5 slices of ginger root

- 1 cup Absolut vodka

- Stir ingredients in the mason jar and incubate

- Incubation time: 30 min

Fennel and Bay Leaf Whiskey

- 3 tbsp fennel seeds

- 2 bay leaves, crushed up

- 1 cup Maker's Mark whiskey

- Stir ingredients in the mason jar and incubate

- Incubation time: 30 min

Green Tea and Black Sesame Gin

- 1 tbsp loose leaf green tea

- 1 tbsp black sesame seeds

- 1 cup Bombay Sapphire gin

- Stir ingredients in the mason jar and incubate

- Incubation time: 15 min

I would recommend NOT doing shots with your prized creations. The flavors coming out of these alcohol infusions are fairly potent, and therefore would be better served (pun intended) in a mixed drink or cocktail.

You could probably store these infusions for a week or two in the sealed glass bottles in the fridge. I usually just make them fresh before a gathering though, scaling up the recipes above to party sized portions.

Try experimenting with different alcohol and flavor combinations until you get an infused alcohol all your own. Then invite me over so we can get wasted! WOOO!

Happy crafting!