Happy New Year! Sorry my absence has been so long. I’ll tell you more about it sometime soon. I hope everyone has been enjoying the holidays with family and friends.
If you are in recovery from holiday indulgence, this is a simple and relaxing liqueur that could be enjoyed a number of ways.
Chamomile Liqueur
1/8 oz. dried Chamomile flowers or tea (about 3 Tablespoons)
1 c. Vodka
2 large strips of lemon zest
2 Tablespoons Honey
Add all ingredients together in a pint jar (or larger if you are multiplying the batch). Close the jar tightly and shake well. Allow to infuse for about 3-4 weeks. Strain and filter, and enjoy!
Mix all of the above ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice.
This drink has the flavor of the mushroom, with a touch of sweetness from the maple, balanced with the tart lemon juice and bitters. In all, I think this was pretty delicious! I wouldn’t mind having another…
It is hot out! I mean it is really HOT out! Right about now, chili peppers are ripening and finding their way into many dishes and meals… and let’s not forget… cocktails.
I have received a number of questions about infusing hot peppers. And honestly, this is the only pepper infusion that I have done. It turned out really wonderful. It has great flavor, and also an underlying heat and depth of the peppers.
Feel free to use different peppers in this recipe. But beware not to use too many. That is a very common mistake of pepper infusions.
Chili Agave Liqueur
1/2 c. agave
1/2 c. water
2 cinnamon sticks
1 tsp black pepper corns
1 serrano pepper (fresh) – sliced in half
1 red or green jalapeno pepper (fresh) – sliced in half
5 dried chili peppers, stems removed, left whole
zest of 1 lemon (large strips if possible)
2 c. vodka
Combine all ingredients except the vodka in a small sauce pan. Bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat. Let the mixture cool completely, about an hour. Strain the solids out of the syrup mixture, and pour the syrup into a quart jar or other glass container. Add the vodka to the canning jar, seal tightly. Shake to combine. Allow to infuse for 1 week.
After infusing for a week, strain well through a jelly bag and coffee filters.
If you don’t want your infusion to turn out too spicy, you could remove the seeds from the chilis before simmering in the syrup, or cut back on the number of chilis. If this does turn out too hot for your taste, thin it out with a bit more vodka and agave.
Those of you who have been asking for some “sweet heat”, you will love this liqueur. We have been too greedy to share much of it with others, but my father said this one was his favorite in a recent taste test. He is a lover of all things hot and spicy, so if you are too… you better start infusing!
All of these infusions can be made with almost any variety of blackberry. Here in Oregon, we have a local cultivar of blackberry called the Marionberry. This berry is slender and a bit tart, but a very tasty variety of blackberry.
I must be a bit greedy… because my recent trip to my parents’ farm to pick Marionberries yielded ten pounds of these beauties. (I also managed to come home with a couple pints of wild black raspberries, a favorite from my childhood.)
While most of the berries made their way into a large batch of jam, and a few ended up in a batch of Maple-Bourbon Blackberries, the rest were turned into several prized infusions.
Blackberry (Marionberry) Bourbon
2 1/2 c. Blackberries
2 1/4 c. Bourbon
Combine ingredients in a large jar, seal well and shake. Store in a cool, dark place for several months or until it reaches your desired taste, shaking contents every few days. Add sugar/honey if desired. Strain and filter with strainer, cheesecloth, and coffee filters.
Blackberry (Marionberry) Mojito Infusion
2 c. Blackberries
2 c. Rum
1/4 c. Packed mint leaves (we used a combination of spearmint and chocolate mint)
Zest of 1 lime
2 TB Sugar (or more to taste)
Combine all ingredients in a large jar and follow directions above for Blackberry Bourbon.
Blackberry-Lemon Liqueur
2 c. Blackberries
Zest of 1 lemon
1 1/4 c. Brandy
3/4 c. Vodka
2 TB Sugar (or more to taste)
Combine all ingredients in a large jar and follow directions above for Blackberry Bourbon.
While you may not have Marionberries in your area, try any of these liqueurs/infusions with your local variety of blackberry. As each variety has a different “sweetness” to it, you may want to alter the sugar content to suit your variety.
Who needs a Monday cocktail? It is (finally) a gorgeous, sunny summer day here in the Pacific Northwest. And a cool, refreshing drink sounded just perfect.
We’re bringing back a few infusions that we made a while back, but they are perfect for this summer beverage.
The first liqueur I ever made was Raspberry. I guess I should say the first four liqueurs I made were all Raspberry!
A few years ago, I went to my parents’ farm to pick some raspberries for jam. I came home with a LOT of berries. I made a few batches of jam, and it seemed like I had not even made a dent in the volume of raspberries. So I started going through my liquor cabinet, selecting anything that seemed like it would taste good with the berries.
I ended up with Raspberry Vodka, Raspberry Brandy, Raspberry Cachaça and Raspberry-Mint Gin. I left all of the infusions in the back of our coat closet for three months. And by the time we filtered them, they were heavenly. (Follow recipe for Simple Raspberry Liqueur below) Each year, the volume of Raspberry Liqueur in my pantry seems to grow.
As I started to infuse a wider variety of ingredients, the Raspberry liqueurs have remained some of my favorites.
I spent a good part of the day yesterday picking raspberries with my mother. (And I’ve got the scratches all over my arms to prove it!)
I ended up with about four pounds of amazing, sweet, delicious raspberries. If you have never infused raspberries before, you are really missing out. These wonderful liqueurs really are a little splash of heaven.
Simple Raspberry Liqueur
750 ml bottle of 80 proof booze (vodka, gin, rum, brandy, or cachaça)
3 1/2 c. raspberries
1/4 to 1/2 c. sugar (or more depending on your preference)
Combine all ingredients in a large glass jar. Shake or stir every few days, allowing to infuse for up to 3 months, or until it reaches your desired taste. Add more sugar if desired. Strain and filter well. The straining process can take a while with raspberries, but the jelly bag (or lots of cheesecloth) and coffee filters will produce a clear result.
Follow directions above, same as Simple Raspberry Liqueur.
This is a favorite of ours, and tastes amazing in a gin and tonic.
This year I decided to try out some new variations and flavors. I don’t quite know how they will turn out yet… I guess we’ll have to wait a while before we know. I hope these inspire you to get creative with your raspberry infusions as well.
Raspberry-Lemon Vodka
2 c. Raspberries
Zest of 2 lemons
2 c. Vodka
1/4 c. Sugar
Follow directions above, same as Simple Raspberry Liqueur.
ROB Rum (Raspberry-Orange-Blueberry)
1 c. Frozen Blueberries (cut in half or roughly chopped)
1 1/4 c. Raspberries
Zest of one orange
2 c. Rum
2 TB Sugar
Follow directions above, same as Simple Raspberry Liqueur.
After these have infused for a while, we may alter them with more sugar or simple syrup. We also may add more zest if necessary.
And finally, one last treat…
Chocolate-Raspberry Liqueur
1 1/2 c. Raspberries
1/4 c. cocoa nibs
1/4 c. sugar
2 c. vodka
Follow directions above, same as Simple Raspberry Liqueur.
We will let you know how these new flavors turn out… but it may be a while before they are ready. We will try tasting them before the three months are up to see if they infuse quicker than we think. But I think they will need at least a month.
Do you have any raspberry infusion flavor ideas? What are your favorites?
Thank you Jayme and Nicky from #gartenderchat for inspiring me to make this drink. It was refreshing and best of all, the sage came straight from my garden.
For those of you who missed the last post, gartending = gardening + bartending = growing your own cocktails.
Place ice in a cocktail shaker, add one large sage leaf and muddle. Add remaining ingredients, shake well and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
If you haven’t yet made Lemongrass Vodka, you could start infusing now … (I’m waiting…) or if you are less patient, you could muddle some heavily into the cocktail shaker and add straight vodka.
The lemongrass vodka is so easy, fragrant, and versatile, I know that we will make more of it so that we can have more delicious cocktails… I hope you enjoy this one. We sure did.
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…)
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.
