Has anyone ever made their own infused vodka?

I have! I made one with cranberries and one with orange/lemon rinds. I didn't really do it right (the flavor was weak), but the gift bottles looked beautiful with the fruit in them.

Hey k!!

I am going to try some infused oils too. Those bottles will look beautiful.

But weak oil is okay. Strange vodka? Dunno. I am nervous about using candy. Adding sugar to alcohol? We'll see. Its already bright red.

At least its a fun idea. It is just for some friends who will appreciate the effort.

I think it'll be great!

Oil infusions need time to mature, don't they? What types of those are you doing?

You can infuse vinegar as well. That's an easy one.

I am not sure which oils yet. I am going to try to find cheap bottles today. There is a store, China Fair, in Newton with things like that.

I did the vodka with candy because my friend said it only takes a week, rather than fruit which can take two weeks.

Okay, so last night I put the candy in with the vodka and let it sit over night. This morning almost all of the candy has dissolved, the vodka is BRIGHT red. There is some candy stuck in the corners? of the bottle. So I'll see how those do. (But bright red in a clear bottle with green ribbons... cute.)

It smells great. Like a Red Hot. I'll taste it tonight.

Who knows, this might be a terrible experiment, but hey it'll be fun to test!

Sounds fabulous!!!

What a great idea....hope the taste testing goes well also

Ive not done alcohol before...oils yes, alcohol, no.

I tasted it last night. Oh boy, its good!! (I love cinnamon candy so I guess that's why). But jeesh, I should have done it AFTER wrapping gifts. I was cutting a little crooked after my two shots (had to test each bottle!).

I still need to find bottles to put it in. I might actually *gulp* go to Christmas Tree shop tomorrow.

I made raspberry vodka. I just put the vodka in another container, jammed the bottle full of raspberries and filled it back up (slowly). Obviously easier if I had a different container entirely, but a gift's a gift.

It came out great. After it was sufficiently red and berry-ish he just stuck it in the freezer.

I like using fruit because there's so many great combinations. A good rule of thumb is to use about 50% more fruit than you think you need, especially if you want to use it right away.

I used vodka as the base for some home-made kahlua once. I don't have the recipe right here but I think it included sugar, coffee, of course and whole vanilla beans. It had to infuse for a while, but it was quite tasty. I remember that we were told to put a few grinds of black peppercorns in there too, for that liqueur bite.

I filled a huge wine bottle with it. It was for a brunch where we used huge mugs of coffee with a big shot of kahlua, a big shot of Jack Daniels and/or a shot of brandy... a little bit of sugar and some whipped cream. Oh boy. Those were good. They were called Coffee Nudges and we used to joke that all it too was a nudge afterwards and you'd fall over.

BigDice uses Swedish candy called 'Turkish Peppar'. It's like very hot, spicy liquorice (my goodness, how do spell that?). The vodka turns to a very interesting brown-green color kinda like motor oil. We both think it tastes great. Almost all of our German friends don't. Oh well...

Of course you can also use gummi bears - that's more German.

Bugger branded vodkas.

I buy the cheapest own brand vodka in the supermarket. Empty bottle into large plastic jug, fill empty bottle to the one third level with selected soft fruit (blueberries work briliantly), then fill a further third with castor sugar (slightly less if you prefer not so sweet), then fill bottle to full with vodka that you poured into the jug.
Repeat on any other sealable empty bottles that you may have (to use leftover vodka in jug), or simply drink the leftover vodka with a scantily clad friend.
Screw tops tight on bottles, and shake regularly for a few days. Label the bottles with description and date,.
Place in the back of the drinks cupboard and re-discover them several months later and preferably when Xmas is at hand.
Give a large schooner to Aunt Doris and put some Kenneth McKeller on the turntable. Stand back.

In my cupboard, I have homemade:
Blueberry vodka
Cherry Brandy
Rhubarb vodka
Sloe gin and Redcurrant vodka.
All made with fruit from the garden (except the blueberries..) and all festering away until December, although most of them are ready for drinking now.
When polished off, the residue fruit from the bottle is drained for a day or two and stirred into melted dark chocolate, and poured thinly onto toffee trays and left to cool. Smash it all to buggery when cold, and place into tupperware etc., for future gromphing.

Lovely!

I've made both faux Kahlua and Limoncello with ordinary supermarket vodka. They take a while to get really good (but then they're really good); I remember something like two or three months. There are lots of recipes for these online.

Never tried either of those, but you've now inspired me to look up the recipes.
One thing I forgot.....on a hot, summer's day (we've got one booked for the 3rd August this year in the UK), there's nothing beats an inch or two of redcurrant vodka in a tall tumbler, which is then topped right up with tonic and ice.

Here's the limoncello recipe I used -

http://pmitchell.typepad.com/vox/
http://able2know.org/topic/134715-1

Hah, well, it's still there, even though the blog isn't.
Here's a more direct link -
http://pmitchell.typepad.com/vox/2006/07/homemade-limoncello-recipe-when-california-life-gives-you-lemons.html#more



I'm remembering that (I think it was) Danny de Vito and some other guy who got riotously drunk on Limoncello. Baaaaaaaad idea.

ah, here - http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2019716_2019715_2019783,00.html


Oh, and if your lemons from the store are waxed, there are ways to get that off the peel.

I like the site which you have shared, I am very intrested to do infused vodka, buy this i will try to do.

What an idea..oil infusion..
I tried apple, it was very tasty and also vodka with candy.