Sunday, June 26, 2005

Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow may be tax time or something. And that would suck, you know?

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Last night, some folks got together to drink and play pool. Some took in dinner and a movie. Other people went to a ballgame, or had a clambake, or fought a couple guys before passing out, or dealt out a few hands of Texas Hold ‘Em.

Last night my buddy Brendan came over and we all made flavored vodka. We decided to go the low road, utilizing a theory first promulgated by the website Oh My God It Burns! which posits that a home water filtration unit (such as a Brita filter pitcher) can remove the impurities from cut-rate vodka and render it the near-equal of top-shelf brands.

What we found was that filtering a bottle of cheap (plastic-bottle store-brand distilled with pride in Somerville, Massachusetts) grain vodka five times does in fact remove nearly all the nasty smell, aftertaste, and burn, making it almost but not quite as delicious as the magically smooth Luksosowa brand potato vodka we used as a control. Although a faint hint of the gluey flavor of cheap vodka remains, the newly enspiffened and filtered liquor is nevertheless the full equal of Skyy, Stoli, or Ketel One, and will work very nicely once infused. Brendan had already made some raspberry and lemon vodkas, both of which were delicious in lemonade.

We ended up making four different vodkas: pepper, orange, ginger, and cranberry. Think about it! Instant seabreezes with just soda water! Orange vodka in cream soda! Ginger vodka in ginger ale! And the by-now hackneyed spicy martini!

We expect the pepper and cranberry vodkas to be ready within a few days based on past experience. The orange zest can sit in the vodka for months, though we anticipate maximum flavor extraction to be achieved in a month or so, possibly sooner. The ginger vodka is a total toss-up, (just a little ginger flavor so far) and I expect I will end up adding another quarter cup or so of grated fresh ginger to the 500ml of vodka and quarter cup of sliced ginger already in the jar. For the pepper vodka we chose one lone poblano pepper. Both Brendan and I have tried making pepper vodka in the past, and have learned caution accordingly.

My first attempt at pepper vodka used 750ml of Luksosowa and three fresh cayenne peppers fresh from Chainsaw Mick‘s garden. Within three days the vodka had turned green and was spicy enough to kill a lesser man. I enjoyed every drop of that vodka in a succession of my own patented “filthy” martinis, the recipe for which follows, until I got to the dregs. It seems that capsaicin, the active heat ingredient in chili peppers, is both alcohol soluble and heavier than vodka. The last martini from that bottle nearly killed me, but through generous applications of ancillary oral analgesics (shots of Jim Beam) I managed to get through it. Brendan’s prior experiences were similar, so for this new iteration we chose to employ the mild and flavorful poblano chile. If after 48 hours the vodka has not taken on any heat, I can always drop in a leftover cayenne for a little while to kick it up, but I expect I won’t have to.

We also chose to try to make our vodkas extremely concentrated, so that when the infusions are ready we can dilute them down with freshly filtered cheapo liquor to a usable strength. We have future plans for combo infusions, say, ginger and lemongrass or orange and vanilla. I am hoping to try out more savory flavors as well like cinammon, clove, and cardamon. If anybody has any hott drink ideas, please send them along. Perhaps I could substitute dark rum for the vodka in the last instance and make insta-mulled cider when winter comes. Nummy-num-num-num.

So that was my Saturday night. Any of my friends living nearby can expect fancy-pants liquor for Festivus this year.

Filthy Martini

2 oz. ice-cold pepper vodka
dash chilled dry vermouth
2 tsp chilled green olive juice
1 Tbsp chilled kosher pickle juice (use fermented pickle juice with live cultures, not just vinegar pickles)
2 green olives

In a shaker, pour vermouth over ice and drain, leaving behind only a residue. Add vodka and olive and pickle juice, and shake or stir as desired. Strain into martini glass and garnish with olives.


Posted by Johno on 06/26/05 at 06:35 PM
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