Bathtub Gin and Other DIY Alcohols
Gangsters did it during prohibition and now, even though liquor is legal, you can too. Gourmet's Ian Knauer shares his quick and easy recipe using juniper berries and spices. If you just want to spruce up a bottle of cheap gin, add sloe berries, a relative of the plum. This makes a ruby red, sweeter drink.
The base for making gin is vodka, so if you are like me and your stomach turns with each sip of the juniper berry-infused beverage, there are other things you can do to flavor it. Sauver featured a recipe for pineapple-infused vodka where you take sugar, vodka, and a whole pineapple. You let it sit in a glass container for two days and then strain it.
You can also infuse vodka with ginger, vanilla beans, bubble gum and even bacon.
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9 Comments:
Is there anything you can't use to flavor vodka?
I love doing this before the holidays and give the flavored bottles in many sizes as gifts or as part of baskets of drinking or cooking items.
Chopped fresh cranberries and orange peel--let sit in the dark for about a month.
Fresh lavender flowers--2-15 days
Fresh herbs for a cooking vodka.
Chili peppers.
Bubble gum and bacon? Okay, there ARE limits! Ew.
Ginger is my favorite, (I just leave about 8 oz. of candied ginger in the bottle til it's empty) but I am not a big vodka drinker anyway. I prefer to use it as the base for homemade coffee liqueur. (Kahlua)
I'd love to know where I could get sloe berries though, just for fun. No Whole Foods or the like around here.
sadiepix at 5:22PM on 11/07/08
@sadiepix --Thanks for the suggestions! Actually, there is a restaurant/bar in Manhattan called Tailor that has a bubblegum cocktail using bubblegum vodka! Too sweet for my taste, but it's a nice shade of pink!
Linnea Covington at 5:32PM on 11/07/08
mmmm. pineapple!
Chvad at 5:49PM on 11/07/08
Bubblegum flavors are up there with sour apple and other childhood-candy flavors...I just can't mix that with my adult drinks, though I admit to not wanting most mixed drinks and preferring straight-on-the-rocks.
My teeth hurt thinking about bubblegum booze!
I would like to find a way to have pumpkin/squash vodka...sort of a pumpkin pie flavor. It would be a great way to flavor a light rum to use in eggnog!
I will have to try out the pineapple one too...I imagine the fruit is FANTASTIC to eat once you are done with the flavoring!
sadiepix at 7:29PM on 11/07/08
I love gin; my favorite drink is a gin and tonic with a little bit of lime juice in it. The strong pine flavor reminds me of my childhood (we had a huge pine tree in our front yard).
As for infusing: I've tried bacon and coffee. The bacon tastes great in a Bloody Mary (a BloodyLT); as for the coffee: I don't think I've had worse heartburn before or since.
PeteRepeat42 at 9:23PM on 11/07/08
Tea-infused vodka works very well.
bobwieman at 10:18PM on 11/07/08
do you have to make it in a bathtub? or drink it in a bathtub? If so, how do you clean bubble gum out of the tub afterwards? Does the pineapple float or sink? I hope you realize these questions are rhetorical. I'm just trying to Imagine.
jaywarner at 9:12AM on 11/08/08
Or you could just pour the vodka into your tub and have soap scum flavored vodka, or body flavored vodka.
juliebugsmama at 11:06AM on 11/10/08
Try this:
Two liters of vodka, and two spare (clean!) liter bottles.
The peel of whatever citrus you like; orange, lemon and grapefruit are musts. Add as much as you want. Add some halved kumquats if you're feeling daring.
Add sugar syrup to taste (not more than a half-cup per litrer). Bottle, store cold for a month.
Delicious.
NotAmerican at 2:39PM on 11/13/08