70 Notes on “House Infused Spirits”

1. I infused my own lemon vod­ka and left it in longer than 5 days. More like 10 days and it turned yel­low. Is that ok?

2. That’s ok. It’ll prob­a­bly just have a strong lemon fla­vor­ing.

3. yeah i for­got about my lemon vod­ka infu­sion too. much like i for­got about my gar­den. left the zest in for 2 weeks maybe. it looks like banana snow­ball syrup. can’t wait to try it!

4. Real­ly great your infusions!I’ll try some of them and i will tell you about my impressions.Thanks.

5. Thanks! I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

6. Any recipes to make a “real” vanil­la vod­ka?

7. Greg, I would rec­om­mend get­ting this book to help you with your infu­sions, “Infused” by Susan Elia Mac­Neal. I haven’t tried mak­ing vanil­la vod­ka but my infu­sions usu­al­ly take 5 days or a month. I would sug­gest buy­ing two qual­i­ty vanil­la beans, split length­wise, drop into a bot­tle of vod­ka, and infuse to your taste. Infuse away from direct sun­light and shake dai­ly. When you’re hap­py with the taste, strain through a cof­fee fil­ter and enjoy.

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9. I took your advice and pre-baked the blue­ber­ries for our blue­ber­ry-infused gin. Total­ly works. We wait­ed about ten days and the results were phe­nom­e­nal.

10. Awe­some. Glad it turned out so well. What are you plan­ning on using the blue­ber­ry gin in?

11. I tried infus­ing Tequi­la with jalapeños last week, but I also added lemon and orange. It turn out very well after only a day(I left the seeds and the veins on it), Next time I’ll prob­a­bly add more tequi­la and wait a lit­tle longer.
    I also did Rye whiskey with car­da­mon seeds, cloves and cin­na­mon, and it was very intense before the third day, the fla­vors are there, but I haven’t use it in any cock­tail yet.
    Great blog

12. Just dis­cov­ered your blog, I’m lov­ing it. Full of great cock­tail infor­ma­tion. I’ve been inter­est­ed in cocktails/mixology for a while now. I’ve been try­ing my hand at infu­sions and home made bit­ters.

    I just strained out a Thai influ­enced infu­sion with; lemon­grass, thai basil, gin­ger, lime rind(would have gone with kaf­fir leaves if I could have found them), lemon balm and mint. I blend­ed that with a lit­tle bit of a biter infu­sion I had made ear­li­er and sim­ple syrup, into more of a cor­dial but not as sweet. Turned out well! Sor­ry for the long post… haha. I just haven’t found a great blog like yours talk­ing about this stuff;0)

13. Wow! That sounds won­der­ful. Did you take any pic­tures? If so, I’d love to see them. Share them on my Face­book page.

14. Those sound great. Good idea adding the cit­rus to your tequi­la infu­sion. Soon I’ll be post­ing a new arti­cle on a choco­late infu­sion with rye whiskey. Keep an eye out. Peo­ple have been lov­ing the cock­tail I make with it.

15. Thanks Josh! I don’t have any pic­tures but my next batch I’m def­i­nite­ly going to. I do have video doc­u­men­ta­tion of what I’m doing. I blend­ed and bot­tled up my Thai Infu­sion yes­ter­day. If you’re inter­est­ed in check­ing it out I have been post­ing my videos on youtube.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1q2hFvr1NE&feature=channel_video_title

16. How do you store the final prod­uct? How long does it keep? These look beau­ti­ful and would make great gifts!

17. Sarah-They should be pre­served in the alco­hol. It would prob­a­bly best to keep them refrig­er­at­ed but I don’t think it’s nec­es­sary. I would­n’t keep them on a hot wid­ow sill. You will prob­a­bly con­sume them before you have any­thing to wor­ry about.

18. I was curi­ous when you were going to post your choco­late infused rye? Can’t wait to try it.

19. Yeah, it’s a good one. I post­ed the infu­sion recipe under the cock­tail recipe for the Blind Tiger: http://postprohibition.com/recipes/blind-tiger/#access

20. Love this site! Just dis­cov­ered it! 🙂
    My man­friend loves his gin&tonics.. I want­ed to home infuse some gin as a gift, dyu think the blue­ber­ry gin would go alright in a g&t or is it only suit­ed to cocktails/rocks? If so, can you sug­gest a bet­ter flavour?

21. Blue­ber­ry gin and ton­ics are great! Feel free to play around with maybe rasp­ber­ries, or rose­mary, etc.

22. Pecan infused bour­bon comes out great! I made that and a maple syrup infused bour­bon which I used in the fol­low­ing recipe.

    Geor­gia Man­hat­tan
    2 oz pecan infused bour­bon
    2 oz maple syrup infused bour­bon
    2 oz peach schnaup­ps
    Ice glass for that extra chilly con­coc­tion. Mix togeth­er in shak­er with ice. Gar­nish with a cher­ry and serve.

    I have to say now that I have start­ed to do my own infu­sions I can’t wait to do a peach ver­sion so that all the alco­hols in this are my own. Thanks for the web­site.

23. Thanks for shar­ing! Let me know how your peach infu­sions go. I found with my blue­ber­ry infu­sions to slight­ly cook the fruit to release some nat­ur­al sug­ars.

24. Thanks for the tip. I also want­ed to add that I am very big into elim­i­nat­ing waste, so I had to come up with some­thing good to do with the pecans from the pecan infused bour­bon. So, I decid­ed that after I did the infu­sion I need­ed to dehy­drate the pecans pri­or to cook­ing, so I put them back into the oven at 350 degrees for 20 min­utes. Then I made my 1st pecan pie. It has a nice hint of bour­bon fla­vor and I am going explore this direc­tion with every infu­sion.

25. Nice use of the pecans. I might have to try that out. I’ve also found myself bak­ing the pecans. I usu­al­ly give them a coat of brown sug­ar. And recent­ly I’ve added them to some home­made bour­bon ice cream.

26. Just curi­ous as to whether you gen­tle­men have found any oth­er inter­est­ing uses for post­bour­bon pecans? (I’ve nev­er tried blanch­ing pecans but if they can be blanched, that’d solve your sed­i­ment issue, most­ly.)

27. Hi every­one,
    I just start­ed infus­ing today! I am real­ly excit­ed about it. Want­ed to bounce some ideas off you guys.…was think­ing about doing a gin and mint/lime. Has any­one tried this?
    If you want to bal­ance things appro­pri­ate­ly can you add things lat­er on down the line? For exam­ple I’d like to do a cucum­ber mel­on but I think the cucum­ber is a light fla­vor and I would like to have that fla­vor more estab­lished before I add a stronger fla­vor like a mel­on. Right now I have the cucum­ber in the vod­ka not sure if I can add down the line to bal­ance the fla­vor appro­pri­ate­ly.
    I’m glad I found this site!

28. Some friends of mine infused tequi­la with vanil­la beans, aug­ment­ed with a lit­tle agave nec­tar. It made for incred­i­bly smooth mar­gar­i­tas.

29. High­ly rec­om­mend using organ­ic, espe­cial­ly if you are leav­ing the skin on or using it (ie lemon zest). The skin on many fruits are able to keep pes­ti­cides and fer­til­iz­ers from get­ting to the core of the fruit but there will be some absorp­tion into the skins… I pre­fer know­ing exact­ly what poi­sons I’m putting in my body 🙂

30. I find that its bet­ter to mud­dle things like water based fruits and veg­eta­bles, (ie mel­on and cucum­ber) they seem to absorb the spir­its and turn rather then infuse their fla­vors. Fruits, espe­cial­ly berries do well releas­ing their fla­vor over time. I have my sec­ond batch of straw­ber­ry gin this sea­son going cur­rent­ly. The first batch I includ­ed basil which turned and did­n’t add much fla­vor. This time I mud­dled the fresh basil into my straw­ber­ry gin with much bet­ter results. Exper­i­ment with small batch­es and if it works, go big.

31. Great point Bri­an.

32. I agree Bri­an. Juic­ing these water based fruits can also be so refresh­ing and can give your cock­tail vol­ume. Infus­ing herbs into spir­its does­n’t real­ly work. It ends up being bit­ter or veg­e­tal. How long do you infuse your straw­ber­ry gin?

33. Eric how long did you infuse the vanil­la beans and how much?

34. I’ve found that it only takes 3–5 days, after that the fruit starts to fall apart. Once the berries have turned white and plumped up I strain the batch and then crush them in the strain­er to get most of the liq­uid. The fla­vor will great­ly very on the ripeness of the fruit. I had a batch last year that was made with over ripe fruit and turned out so sweet that it had to be cut with cit­rus but the fla­vor was amaz­ing. I have not been able to repro­duce it yet this sea­son. The taste is amaz­ing but I have to say the scent and col­or real­ly calls for it to be served up on dis­play.

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36. Look­ing for­ward in mak­ing some great infused drinks for our new restau­rant.
    Any­one have some sug­ges­tions on what I should start with?

37. Joe,
    I would say the lemon vod­ka is my most pop­u­lar infu­sion and would be a great start. Be sure to scrap off the white pith on the back of your peels. Let us know what you come up with.

38. Hi
    Love the blog, just bought a bar and have made my first 2 batch­es of vod­ka, one with apples and the oth­er with cit­rus, though I looked on anoth­er web­site and they said to leave the lemons whole so not sure how it will turn out.

39. Lyn, I would­n’t infuse the whole lemons. You are going to pick up some bit­ter and sour fla­vors. With the just the peels you get a nice clean lemon fla­vor.

40. I have an idea form­ing in my brain about carde­mon infused bur­bon with a swirl of warm hon­ey (I’m a bee­keep­er) served over ice for a hol­i­day par­ty. How does that sound? Advice? Thanks

41. Can frozen blue­ber­ries be sub­sti­tut­ed for fresh in mak­ing a vod­ka infu­sion and in what quan­ti­ty?

42. I just found a chai liqueur and found it was a great addi­tion to a cock­tail. With that in mind I have been con­sid­er­ing mak­ing my own. Has any­one tried this and if so can you give me a good start­ing point?

43. Has any­one found a use for the pecans once they’ve infused the bour­bon? I was think­ing it might be tasty to dehy­drate or roast them after. Has any­one tried any­thing sim­i­lar?

44. Kat, I have roast­ed the pecans after the infu­sion. I tossed them in a rich sim­ple syrup and baked them. Be care­ful though because they are soaked in pow­er­ful alco­hol. I left the oven door open a crack to be safe. Cheers!

45. Hey guys! I have done the pecan recipe a few times and its amaz­ing every time. This last time I added to the recipe. I added cin­na­mon. Sim­ple but made a dif­fer­ence! After I pull the pecans from the bour­bon, I cool them in sim­ple syrup and reduce it down by half. Cook it for 20–30 mins on high heat. Once “glossy” i strain the pecans, save the now fresh Pecan Sim­ple Syrup and then cook the pecans one more time. I add a lit­tle bit of salt before i cook them the final time. Once done, I jar the now deli­cious pecans and serve them with this drink I came up with.

    2 oz Pecan Infused bour­bon
    1.25 oz Berentzen Apfel
    .5 oz Pecan Sim­ple Syrup

    Shak­en and served over a giant cube of ice. It’s won­der­ful. I have a pic­ture I would love to share on here.

    -Kei­th

46. Love the cre­ativ­i­ty! Keep em com­ing.

47. Hi Josh,

    Big fan of your site.

    I want to make the blue­ber­ry infused bour­bon in hopes of con­coct­ing a punch for a sum­mer par­ty.

    First ques­tion; I typ­i­cal­ly strain out the infused liquor once the desired fla­vor has been achieved (typ­i­cal­ly with any­thing acidic) but in the case of fresh vanil­la bean pods (3 with a slice down the cen­ter) I will leave them in until the bot­tle is emp­ty. Should I leave the blue­ber­ries in the bour­bon or strain out?

    Sec­ond ques­tion; I was look­ing at your “Old Faith­ful” punch recipe but not sure how well the grape­fruit and blue­ber­ry bour­bon will blend and was think­ing lemon would be a good sub­sti­tute but with a dan­ger of mak­ing the punch to tart in the wrong pro­por­tions. I def­i­nite­ly think St-Ger­main and mint leaves will go great with the blue­ber­ry and like the idea of pow­dered sug­ar vs sim­ple syrup. I was also think­ing of a cham­pagne float once ladled into indi­vid­ual glass­es instead of sparkling water and let­ting it sit with a large ice block for an addi­tion­al hour or 2 to help water it down. Was real­ly hop­ing for sug­ges­tions on how to bal­ance it out…

    Cheers,

    Jon

48. I real­ly like your tech­nique for the blue­ber­ry bour­bon — it’s the most ele­gant I’ve seen for the recipes I’ve looked up. Here’s a lit­tle dit­ty I made with it:

    http://feu-de-vie.blogspot.com/2013/06/disco-buffalo.html

    Cheers!

49. I was mak­ing a Lemon Blue­ber­ry Tequi­la infu­sion and took the advice to shake the infu­sion a lit­tle. Now that I did that, most of the blue­ber­ries took over the bot­tom. Do you think this will alter the taste? Should I strain and move the blue­ber­ries around again so they are more spread out? Thanks!

50. Total­ly nor­mal. Let the alco­hol do its mag­ic. Keep shak­ing and tast­ing the infu­sion every­day. Should be ready in 4–5 days but this is up to you and how you want it to taste.

51. Hel­lo, What can you use with the pecan bour­bon? I had a mar­ti­ni once with that. but I cant remem­ber what was all in it.

52. Dory, I have a cock­tail on here called the Dor­thy Dan­dridge, give it a try.

53. Just fin­ished my first batch of infu­sions! I strained and triple fil­tered (cof­fee fil­ters) each fla­vor, but there is still a pow­dery sed­i­ment that col­lects at the bot­tom. Is this typical/normal? Or is there a way to remove/avoid it?

    Thanks so much! Love your site!

54. Saman­tha, What was your infu­sion? The cof­fee fil­ter should of done the trick. Maybe try to freeze the infu­sion and the sed­i­ments will clump togeth­er, mak­ing it eas­i­er to fil­ter.

55. Lemon grass and lemon zest works well togeth­er

56. Hi Josh ,

    Love your web­site and was hop­ing you could help me. I want to do some home infused sprir­its as wed­ding favours for my upcom­ing wed­ding and I’d love your advice.

    I’m look­ing to do a maple infused bour­bon or whiskey, do you have a recipe or rec­om­men­da­tion for this? Have you tried it before?
    I’m also pret­ty keen to try your blue­ber­ry infused vod­ka! Sounds love­ly. Would you rec­om­mend the liqueur over the spir­it? Not sure what would taste best as a shot after din­ner.

    I’m also look­ing for your exper­tise of hav­ing tried and test­ed so many great recipes to see how long you should let the spir­its infuse and where? In the fridge or not? I guess since we are mak­ing quite a few jars, won­der­ing where to keep them all.

    Thank you so much in advance and I very much look for­ward to hear from you.

    All the best,
    Pas­cale

57. Pas­cale,
    For the maple bour­bon, I would keep the maple sep­a­rate. I usu­al­ly make a 1:1 syrup with maple for cock­tails. Have you seen my Les Paul recipe?
    For the blue­ber­ry infu­sion, I would slight­ly cook the blue­ber­ries with a pinch of sug­ar. This will help break down the skins, speed­ing up the infu­sion and this also brings out some of the nat­ur­al sug­ars. I found this only takes @4 days for me. You can do this to your taste. If you’re look to just sip this stuff then maybe do the infu­sion a lit­tle longer. I just keep my jars in a cool dark place, no need to stick them in the fridge.

58. For the Lemon infused vod­ka, is it only the lemon zest that goes in it with no whites or is it lemon zest and the actu­al lemon that goes in? Is it okay if pulp gets in or is that a no no? Thank you!

59. Just the peels with no white pith.

60. I tried your pecan recipe and did it as fol­lows..

    1 bot­tle of Rit­ten­house 100 rye
    2 cups of pecans
    cin­na­mon

    tossed the pecans in cin­na­mon and baked at 350 for 30 min­utes, toss­ing reg­u­lar­ly. placed in Glass con­tain­er and let cool. poured rye over the top and sealed. infused for 5 days.

    the results were awe­some. super but­tery tex­ture, sub­tle cin­na­mon spice. Hot tod­dy’s for days.

61. Some­where on the web is a recipe for Ital­ian Lemon­cel­lo. It is made by infus­ing a cou­ple of dozen of lemon peel zest with a quart of 150 proof spir­its. dandy after din­ner drink straight!

62. I am going to try pecan vod­ka. Cat­head is the only dis­tillery mak­ing it but ship­ping from Mis­sis­sip­pi to Wash­ing­ton is exhor­bent. The say the they “mas­ter­cate”? for 4 to 6 weeks. What do you sup­pose that means.
    A good recipe for a pecan ton­ic drink is in the June/July, 2014 issue of gar­den and guns.
    2 oz pecan vod­ka
    1/2 oz cold strong cof­fee
    9 drops Bit­ter­man’s Oax­a­can mole bit­ters
    3 oz ton­ic water
    mix w/ice

63. This is just a won­der­ful site! I’m so excit­ed!
    I want to try mak­ing some peach Vod­ka and Bour­bon. I’m think­ing I should blanch and peel the peach­es (pes­ti­cides and all) and would you mud­dle them? I plan to let it set for a month because I want a strong fla­vor. Then I hope to keep it in the refrig­er­a­tor for a cou­ple 3 months, if pos­si­ble. Do you think it will go bad? Should I do the infus­ing part in the refrig also?
    Thanks!

64. Michael — how did you make the maple infused bour­bon? Thanks!

65. After soak­ing the pecans and drain­ing, I may try sprin­kling with sug­ar before
    putting them in the oven, to see if this will enhance the fla­vor of the infu­sion.
    I also may add a few cacao beans to the mix.

66. I have a black­ber­ry infused vod­ka that is hazy. Can I put it through a Bri­ta? I’ve heard it will remove some of the fla­vor but cof­fee fil­ter takes SO long. Any sug­ges­tions?

67. (Hope­ful­ly, you’re still noti­fied of this query.) This sounds great! My fam­i­ly grows pecans in New Mex­i­co. I’m get­ting mar­ried in May. Instead of the dol­lar dance, the bride to be and i will be tend­ing bar for a seg­ment at the wed­ding for tips and mak­ing a pecan ver­sion of a black wal­nut cock­tail we had the night i pro­posed to her.

    About how much bour­bon do you lose to the now-soaked pecans? This cuts any need for nut-fla­vored bit­ters, would you think? I have some black wal­nut bit­ters i real­ly like and i’m about to try out El Guapo’s chico­ry pecan bit­ters any­way.

68. Pecan whiskey… I made one recent­ly. I would add that you can do a fat wash and it will like­ly clar­i­fy. Put it in the freez­er a few days. Youll see the oil set­tle in the bot­tom. Run it through a cof­fee fil­ter. Repeat and Wahlah. It takes a while to strain though. I do have a bitter/very dry char­ac­ter­is­tic in mine­from the pecans though. Not sure how to pre­vent or repair that.

69. I make my own Limon­cel­lo, infuse the vod­ka exact­ly as you described with lemon zest, then after a month make a sug­ar syrup and add cold syrup to lemon vod­ka. Put back in cool dark place for anoth­er month and voila, Limon­cel­lo!

70. How about a piece of clean fine cloth, then you could squeeze it through?