Modern co*cktail lists spend as much page space touting housemade infusions and tinctures as they do brand-name bottles. And for good reason: Custom liqueurs allow bars to create signature co*cktails that can’t always be replicated. For bar managers and owners looking to make the most of thin operating margins, it’s cheaper to make something “bespoke” with leftover ingredients from a restaurant’s kitchen, than paying for premade commercial offerings.
Making an infused spirit is like making tea—add a bunch of ingredients you like to a liquid and let them steep. And, in the same way that hot tea is brewed in minutes but iced tea is best steeped overnight, the main thing that affects the infusion is whether you use heat to speed up the process.
As a rule of thumb, infuse spirits at room temperature so as not to burn off any alcohol and allow more time for flavors to subtly integrate. This means flavored liquors will usually need to be prepared days in advance.
Infusing spirits
Vodka is the safest bet when experimenting with DIY flavored liquor. Neutral in flavor by definition (or at least it used to be), vodka provides a blank canvas to play with, and lets the flavor of your infused ingredients take center stage.
However, all types of spirits can be successfully infused. Just make sure to choose ingredients that play well with the spirit’s base flavor profile.
Tequila and mezcal take well to ingredients that compliment earthier components, like peppers, cucumber and grapefruit. With gin, you may want to shy away from pungent herbs and spices that could butt heads with the botanicals already present, and instead stick to citrus peel or cucumber. Whiskey, naturally, plays well with ingredients that complement the spirit’s barrel-aged notes, meaning spices like cinnamon, allspice, vanilla, ginger, dried orange peel or apples. Meanwhile, rum works particularly well to an array of fruits.
As the wine adage goes, “What grows together, goes together.” This also applies to spirits infusions, and where the spirit hails from.
A quick cheat to tell if an infusion may be a good combination is to hold a small amount of the ingredient in your mouth and take a sip of the liquor you’re considering. If you like the resulting taste, you’ll probably like the infusion.
Expect to allow 3–5 days of steeping in room-temperature alcohol to achieve a desirable flavor. Give the container a good shake once a day, and taste the mixture when you do, until it reaches your preferred taste.
Some ingredients may benefit from longer infusion time, but after a week you’ll find that most of your added ingredients’ flavors will have been extracted by the alcohol.
A few quick tips on infusions:
- When infusing spirits with hot peppers (jalapeño, habanero, etc.), remember that the spice comes from the seeds, while the flavor comes from the skins and flesh. Tailor how many seeds you include based on how spicy you want your final infusion.
- Chop larger ingredients, like peppers, into smaller pieces to create more surface area if you want a stronger-tasting infusion.
- Dried fruits largely work better than fresh fruits in spirits. Juicy fruits have a lot of natural water that lock flavors inside and won’t always integrate well unless muddled. Dried fruits will generally have more concentrated flavor which releases into the spirit as the alcohol is absorbed.
- Conversely, you’ll get the best results from fresh herbs like thyme or rosemary, rather than dried herbs. The aromatics will shine through more, and there’s less chance of dusty sediment settling along the bottom of the bottle that could add a bitter aftertaste to your drink.
- No matter how hard you try, there is just no good way to infuse Cheez-Its into vodka. It doesn’t matter if you steep for two months in the back of a liquor closet thinking it would be a funny addition to your Bloody Mary. It just won’t work.
Final notes
Most ingredients can be used to infuse spirits. However, ingredients that have natural water content in them, like fresh fruits, tend to perform better in a syrup. When trying to create a citrus liquor infusion, like grapefruit or lemon vodka, stick to the peels, ideally with as little pith as possible (unless you want to add a touch of bitterness). Meanwhile, dried or fresh herbs may express themselves better when infused into alcohol and given ample time to steep at room temperature.
However, experimentation is part of the fun. The results will be more enjoyable than an overpriced bottle of pre-made cinnamon whiskey or vanilla vodka.
Published: July 3, 2020
