Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Star Anise Gin

May 15, 2012 by Alicia

Anise… I think this is one of those flavors where you either love it or hate it. My mother happens to love it, and she loves gin. So this was one of her Mother’s Day goodies.

Star Anise Gin

20 grams Star Anise

1 c. gin

1 TB Simple Syrup (or more/less to taste)

Place Star Anise in a jar, add gin, seal tight and shake. Allow to infuse for about 2-3 days, then add simple syrup.

At 3 days, this tasted pretty good. Keep infusing until it reaches your desired taste, then strain and filter with cheesecloth and coffee filter if desired. Your infusion time will depend on how strong you want the flavor. It reminded me of a Good and Plenty candy (which I always loved).

I happened to have a lot of star anise, but you could probably cut way back on the amount in the infusion and just allow it to sit for a longer period.

This was very easy and really tasty on its own. And I think might make for a very refreshing gin and tonic!

Cheers to Mom!

Posted in Infusion, Liqueur, Recipes | Tagged , , , | 13 Comments »

Boozy Prune Jam

May 13, 2012 by Alicia

Happy Mothers Day!

Our plans changed a bit this year, and we had to come up with a portable breakfast. What we came up with turned out to be a winner.

Remember the prune liqueur taste test from a few weeks ago? Well we still had the prunes soaking in the booze. We finally strained them and decided to make something useful.

Boozy Prune Jam

1 generous cup booze soaked prunes (half of our prunes were soaked in bourbon, half in brandy)

3/4 cup orange juice

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/2 c. dark brown sugar

pinch of salt

- Make sure the prunes are very soft, and have soaked in the alcohol for a long time. (ours had soaked for a month, so they were very soft and spreadable inside)

- Quarter the prunes, then give them a rough chop.

- Place all ingredients in a small saucepan, and bring to a simmer on medium/low, stirring often and breaking up the prunes.

- Reduce heat to low, and continue to simmer until this reaches the consistency of a thick sauce or loose jam. (It will thicken up a bit upon cooling.) This will probably take about 5-10 minutes.

- Remove from heat and allow to cool.

- Store in refrigerator. Will keep for a few weeks.

We made some mini cream scones to spread this on, and it was perfect! In fact, this spread was so tasty, I could eat it by the spoonful. It was such a hit, I’m tempted to get a big bag of dried prunes to soak in booze for the sole purpose of making this jam and canning it (I’m a canning addict).

If you don’t have booze soaked prunes, you could probably start with dried prunes and stew them on low in a bit of water and brandy or bourbon until they get really soft. Then chop them and proceed with the recipe above.

After the success of this spread, I think we are going to start using a lot more of our booze-soaked ingredients.

Have a great Mother’s Day!

Posted in Food, Recipes | Tagged , , , , | 11 Comments »

The Blueberry Pieball – our new favorite highball

May 10, 2012 by Alicia

When I was envisioning the cocktail for our little Portland blogger get-together, I asked Evelyn from Momsicle (the instigator) what she was looking for in a signature cocktail. She threw out a bunch of ideas, one of which was something that would be easy for readers to make for groups, especially summer parties. So that was the focus of our featured cocktail.

Enter the Highball… Highballs are really a whole family of drinks, which includes booze and a non-boozy mixer. I won’t go into much detail here because I’m not an expert.

Some years ago, we had just moved to High Street and were throwing a housewarming party. The theme was Highballs on High Street, and the drinks were so easy to make for the masses (not that the party was that big). The highball of choice for the night: Bermuda Highball, which includes gin, brandy, vermouth and ginger ale or club soda.

Our Boozed + Infused variation… the Blueberry Highball Pieball, made with our Blueberry Gin infused with pie spices.

Blueberry Pieball

1.5 oz Blueberry Gin

0.5 oz Dry Vermouth

0.5 oz Brandy

3 oz club soda

2 oz ginger ale

lemon twist

Blueberry Ice Cubes (made from blueberry juice) and frozen blueberries to keep the drink cold

Pour each of the ingredients into a tall glass, add a few blueberry ice cubes, frozen blueberries, and one regular ice cube, then garnish with a lemon twist.

For a party, we recommend making a lot of this in advance. The blueberry ice cubes and frozen blueberries will help keep the drink cold without watering it down. Make the ice cubes and freeze your berries the night before your party.

blueberry ice cubes and frozen berries to keep your drink cold

Either the night before, or the morning of the party, mix up the booze so that you aren’t measuring out the various ingredients for each drink. If you have 3 cups of Blueberry Gin, get a large jar, bottle, or pitcher and add the 3 cups or infused gin, 1 cup of vermouth and 1 cup of brandy. Stir, and keep in the freezer or refrigerator so that it won’t melt your ice and frozen berries too quickly.

For the party, you can use a large jigger, and just add equal parts of the Blueberry Pieball Booze Mix, Ginger Ale, and Club Soda. This makes it very simple to make a tray of them.

So… get those blueberries out of your freezer (or go pick up a bag from your local grocer) and start infusing some blueberry gin! This was really easy, refreshing, and tasty. And will make for some great fun at your summer gatherings.

For our get-together, each guest left with their own mini bottle of the Blueberry Pieball Booze Mix. Fun for later…

Cheers!

Posted in Cocktail, Drinks, Recipes | 14 Comments »

Coffee Bourbon Milkshake: Quite possibly the best milkshake you will ever have!

May 8, 2012 by Alicia

I suppose it is possible that I will have a better milkshake at some point in my life. But up to this point, this is easily the best milkshake I have ever had.

Coffee Bourbon Milkshake

2 c. Vanilla Ice Cream (we used natural vanilla with vanilla bean)

3 oz. Coffee Bourbon

Blend in a blender, food processor, or with a hand mixer until very well blended and creamy. At this point, it will be pretty runny. Return it to the freezer, and allow to cool for several hours or longer if possible. If you are very impatient, you can drink it any time. But if you make it in advance and allow it to cool, it will reach the consistency of a soft serve ice cream. Because of the alcohol, it will not freeze too firm, it will maintain this consistency.

I served this milkshake at the get-together with fellow bloggers Evelyn, Poppy, and Krista.  And I know I heard the words “this is the best milkshake I’ve ever had”. I mixed this up a day in advance and was very happy with the result.

If you like thick, creamy milkshakes, and if you like coffee… you know what to do.

ENJOY!

Posted in Food, Recipes | Tagged , , , , , | 12 Comments »

Blueberry Gin

May 6, 2012 by Alicia

Today I hosted a small get together for a few Portland area bloggers. It was a bit of a leap of faith for all of us as we had never met, and they came over to my home. Luckily, we are all still alive to tell the tale. And fortunately I believe a good time was had by all. A few fun cocktails were flowing, and eventually we got out a stack of spoons for everyone to start taste-testing (I think they may have tasted a few dozen…)

So, a big thank you to Evelyn from Momsicle, Poppy from Funny or Snot, and Krista from Mostly Mommyhood.

Eventually, I will post about our cocktails (and they might too…) so stay tuned. In the meantime, I wanted to share the infusion that was the base of our featured cocktail from today’s gathering.

Blueberry Gin

2 c. Gin

2 c. frozen blueberries

1/4 c. sugar

zest of 1 lemon

2 whole cloves

1/2 inch piece of a cinnamon stick

Place the frozen blueberries in a small saucepan. Crush them lightly (I used a pastry cutter). Lightly cook them on low for about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool completely. This amounted to about 1 cup of a gelatinous blueberry goop.

After the blueberries are cool, place all ingredients in a quart jar (or larger). Shake and allow to infuse for at least 4 weeks, stirring or shaking occasionally.When it has reached your desired taste, Strain and Filter through a colander, cheesecloth, jelly bag, and coffee filter.

I got some of the inspiration for this liqueur from Post Prohibition. He recommends using frozen berries because of the organic breakdown of frozen fruit (or something like that… I was willing to give it a try) and also lightly cooking the berries.

The flavor came out great. I really love blueberry pie, so the intent was to include a few spices that you might find in a blueberry pie.

It is delicious! I have not yet tried making a blueberry liqueur with fresh berries, but have had a few blueberry infusions that tasted quite weak. I wanted to make sure we didn’t fall into that trap. The result was great.

Cheers!

Posted in Infusion, Liqueur, Recipes | Tagged , , , , , , | 8 Comments »

Check out Boozed + Infused on Instagram!

May 5, 2012 by Eileen

Guess what?!  You can now find us on Instagram!  our handle is @boozedandinfused and we will be posting little things that inspire us.

Plus, it’s a holiday today and inspired the first post.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

http://instagr.am/p/KQ9-o9JTyp/

Posted in Drinks | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

Coffee Bourbon

May 5, 2012 by Alicia

Coffee… many of us can’t imagine a morning without it (I’m certainly one of them). And coffee liqueur… who doesn’t love a good White or Black Russian?

We knew we wanted to do a coffee liqueur, but took some time trying to decide exactly how we would do it. A lot of coffee liqueur recipes call for vodka, lots of sugar, instant coffee or brewed coffee, etc. In general, we like to use less sugar in our recipes and wanted to incorporate a different booze. So, Coffee Bourbon seemed a natural choice!

Coffee Bourbon

1/4 c. Whole Coffee Beans, Smashed (preferably dark, espresso roast)

1/2 vanilla bean, split

1 TB dark brown sugar (packed)

1 1/4 c. Bourbon

First we took the coffee beans and placed them in two plastic bags. We took a metal muddler and smashed the beans until they were gently crushed (see photo).

Place all ingredients in a small canning jar, and set the jar in a dark, cool location. Every few days, shake the jar lightly.

Infuse for about 3 weeks, or until this reaches your desired taste.

Strain and filter through cheesecloth, jelly bag (if desired) and finally coffee filters.

This coffee liqueur is so rich and delicious. You can taste all the nuances of the bourbon, and the espresso roast coffee gives it such a good flavor.

We are also going to try this same recipe with brandy.

This is a “must try”! If you love coffee, you need to make this.

Enjoy!

Coffee Liqueur on Punk Domestics

Posted in Infusion, Liqueur, Recipes | Tagged , , , , , | 15 Comments »

Older Posts »