Toasted Coconut

03.28.10

After we were so disappointed by our recently completed coconut infusion, we decided to try to improve upon it. Lissa was experimenting with making homemade Samoa girl scout cookies. After toasting the coconut for the cookies, she was wondering how a toasted coconut infusion would come out. Luckily, there has been 5 oz of Fris sitting in L's kitchen, waiting to be used.

We used 2.5 cups of fresh, grated coconut for 750 ml (~25oz) vodka in our coconut infusion. To scale the same we'd use 1/2 cup toasted coconut. However, that infusion took 3 months, so we'll use more coconut in a hope to bring down the infusion time.

1 cup (store bought this time!) sweetened shredded coconut. Toast for ~15 minutes in a 300 degree oven. Stir every 4-5 minutes to ensure even toasting and to prevent burning. L found that she liked the flavor better when the coconut was a light golden brown, instead of golden brown, so toast the coconut to your own taste. We ended up with just less than a cup of coconut after the toasting and taste testing. We added this to the 5oz Fris vodka, and we have no idea if this will come out well or how long it will take.


06.14.10 
Filtered the toasted coconut vodka. This turned out far better than the regular coconut vodka. The flavor is a lot stronger. This will be how we make coconut vodka from now on.

Cranberry-Apple

03.14.10 Does Cranberry + Apple = Cranberry-Apple?

The question that has been on our minds recently is: is mixing two infused vodkas equivalent to having both of the ingredients infused together? For example, is half a shot of strawberry vodka plus half a shot of vanilla vodka equivalent to a shot of vodka that was infused with strawberry and vanilla simultaneously?

Normally, we'd use 1 cup fruit for 750ml vodka. That is approximately 1 apple. Since cranberries have a strong tart flavor, we do not want it to overwhelm the more subtle apple. So, we are guessing that we should use half as much cranberry as we normally would. We used a Macintosh apple and half a Fuji apple, both proportionally equal in the two infusions.

375 ml Fris

1/2 cup frozen cranberries, cut in half

1 apple, thinly sliced

187.5 ml Fris (6.25 oz)

1/4 cup frozen cranberries, cut in half

187.5 ml Fris (6.25 oz)

1/2 apple, thinly sliced

3.21.10 Needs more Apple

Filtered all 3 infusions. The apple was definitely not strong enough, so we added more apples (1 Pink Lady, 1/2 a Macintosh), again split proportionally equal between the two infusions.

03.28.10 Done?

Filtered the apples out of the cranberry-apple and apple infusions.
E: nice balance bet apple and cranberry tartness. No vodka flavor at all. A very nice rose coloring. Ben: I know it's vodka but I don't taste the alcohol. Tastes like cranberry apple. The thing that struck me the most is that there's no alcohol flavor.

Apple:
E: tastes like apple juice, but still some vodka flavor, could go for another round to make it better.

Citrus

3.14.10.  Happy pi day! 

We are attempting to make a citrus infusion. We are infusing orange, tangerine, lemon & lime.  In reading online we have found that there are several techniques used for citrus infusions.  Some recommend using just the zest, some say slice the fruit, some say to slice the fruit but cut off the pith, some say to use the whole fruit with ~20 holes poked 1/2 inch into the body of the fruit, some have tried a combination of zest and slices.

We decided to zest the fruit as that seems to be the most popular technique.  Some day, we'd like to try using the whole fruit with the wholes poked through the rind.  The tangerine wasn't as good as we would like it to be, so we are omitting it. 

750 ml Vikingfjord vodka
2 tsp sugar
zest of: 
1 orange
1 lemon 
2 limes


3.21.10  Taste test
This is coming along well.  It could be done now. We'll let it go for a bit more and see how the flavor comes along.  


03.28.10
E tasted this one.  Emilio says its bitter and will need sugar.  Ben tasted mostly citrus, not sour, a bit of bitterness. 
To be on the safe side, Emilio filtered this. 


04.11.10 
L was finally in town and tasted this one too.  She agrees that it is a bit more bitter.  It's still good and definitely drinkable.  However,  it was definitely better at the 7 day mark.  We'll have to see what we can do to doctor this one up and make it a bit better. 


Recipe


750 ml vodka
2 tsp sugar
zest of: 
1 orange
1 lemon 
2 limes


2 week infusion time

Rum Infusion: Ginger-Star Anise-Vanilla

2.21.10 Ginger-Star Anise-Vanilla RUM infusion

This infusion was commissioned by our friend Jen. She's not much of a vodka fan, and asked us to do a rum infusion for her. She wanted star anise, and then we suggested something to take the edge off of that flavor. She decided to go with Vanilla and Ginger. This is new and fun for us because it is uncharted territory and we have no recipe to go off of.

Cruzan Aged Rum (1L). very strong alcohol flavor. not a spicy rum.

E: "Tastes like rum"

L: that's not helpful.

E: it's neither sweet or bitter.

Neither L nor E cares for the flavor much.

We're guessing on the quantities and this will have to be monitored often for flavor balance. Also this is a 1 liter infusion, not our usual 750 mL.

Ginger took 18 days last time, Vanilla goes for forever, and we're guessing star anisie will be quick, maybe 5 days like black pepper was.

Trying to figure out strategy on this one. We're trying to scale correctly. We're going to do a 1/2 cup of ginger, 2 vanilla beans and we'll figure out the star anise later. We want to make sure Vanilla and Ginger are represented before adding the star anise, which we think will quickly over power the other flavors if we're not careful. In an effort to speed up the process we opted for more Ginger.

1L Cruzan Aged Rum

1 c sliced ginger

2 Tahitian grade A vanilla beans, sliced lengthwise

3.06.10 Balancing the ginger and vanilla

Filtered out the ginger. very gingery, the vanilla was there but it needed more time. L really liked how the vanilla smoothed out the sharpness of the ginger.

3.11.10 This is really good!

Vanilla flavor is coming along very nicely.

9pm. Added 1/3 cup star anise. We have no idea how long this will take, so we'll have to do frequent tastings to keep the flavor in balance.

3.12.10 Anise overkill. :(

8:30am. Woke up and saw that the color of the rum had changed quite a bit. L decided to give it a taste, and the star anise was definitely done, E tasted it. We both agreed that the anise is done and pretty much the only flavor component, so we filtered it immediately, but retained the vanilla beans We're going to give this one another taste later and figure out if we have to infuse more ginger to give it more balance.

Yes. We will have to add more ginger and continue to let the vanilla strengthen.

3.28.10 Under reconstruction

1 cup of sliced ginger was added to try to balance the flavors again. The vanilla beans are still in the vodka as well.

Prickly Pear

3.13.10. Prickly Pear

Found prickly pear fruit in Reading Market today. L has always wanted to try to make something with them. She cut one up and we liked the flavor. Light and sweet, a texture like watermelon, with BB sized edible seeds. Since we had bought a bag of 7 for $1 and had plenty left, we decided to try to make an infusion with the remaining fruit.

When working with the fruit, be a bit careful. The ones at the stores have generally been scrubbed down to remove all of the very fine cactus spines. However, as L had discovered that morning at the market, not all of them get caught and she ended up having several stuck in her hands until we got home and could find the tweezers. :) So, start by scrubbing the fruit down to try to remove any remaining spines. Then, slice the ends off the prickly pear. Make a cut down the body of the fruit, and then peel the skin off. This should leave the pink center of the fruit. For our infusion, we cut the fruit into pieces ~3/4 inch cubes. Since the flavor of the prickly pear is very light, we chose to use Fris vodka since it has the least flavor and burn of the vodkas we had at the time.

375 ml Fris vodka

6 prickly pear fruits, peeled and cubed (~1.5 cups)

3.21.10 Taste test

This is coming along nicely. It will definitely need another round of infusion, but we didn't have time to get to Reading Market this weekend to pick up more prickly pears.

Big Pepper

3.13.10. Big Pepper

Started the "big pepper" infusion from the Fris website. Used the Vikingfjord vodka...figured this infusion would burn anyways, so we could get away with using a vodka that had more burn than usual. We altered the Fris recipe. Their instructions say to infuse for 2 days. We know that we generally like our infusions to taste much stronger than most recipes, so we doubled the ingredients. This is what we did:

750ml Vikingfjord vodka

1/2 fresh poblano chile, sliced and seeded

1/2 fresh serrano chile, sliced and seeded

1/2 fresh jalapeno, sliced and seeded

1/2 fresh red bell pepper, sliced and seeded.

3.16.10 Done! 2.5 Days infusion time.

6am. filtered. This turned out well. It tastes mostly like bell pepper, with a tiny hint of spice at the end. We may tweak this one to give it more spice.

Recipe

750ml vodka

1/2 fresh poblano chile, sliced and seeded

1/2 fresh serrano chile, sliced and seeded

1/2 fresh jalapeno, sliced and seeded

1/2 fresh red bell pepper, sliced and seeded

Infuse for 2-3 days.

Coconut

11.22.09 Coconut, by popular request

Emilio split the coconut open with a hammer and a chisel...it was moldy. boo. Try again later this week.

11.28.09 Getting the Axe

The night before E poked through the coconut shell and drained the coconut water. He started by trying to chisel it open, but eventually brought out a small axe.

After successfully cracking the shell, the meat had to be pried from the shell.

Then we had to cut off the bit of shell that had stuck to the meat. We decided to expose as much surface area of the coconut as possible, so opted to grate the coconut, but after 2 small pieces of coconut, L realized that this would take forever. She decided that dicing was the way to go.

After chopping several more pieces to the consistency of coarsely grated coconut, E took over. This was going to take for-ev-er. It was only then that he realized (thank goodness!) that he has a food processor. That speeded up the process quite nicely, and E was very happy about that.

From the one coconut, we ended up with 2.5c grated coconut.

We were going to do a 1/2 size of this, but after all the work it took to make it, we decided we didn't want to do this again anytime soon and we chose to do a full size. We didn't have an infusion jar large enough to hold the whole coconut and the 750 ml vodka, so we decided to use a large 1.75L empty bottle of Fris. Getting the coconut into this jar was also a challenge, after attempting to get it into the bottle via a homemade tin foil funnel, we went for the old approach of using E's hands as the funnel while L dumped the coconut in.

Here's what we ended up with: 750 ml Fris, 2.5 c grated coconut and 1 tsp sugar.

12.31.09 Taste Test

We've tasted this along the way. The coconut has absorbed a lot of the vodka, and filtering won't be sufficient, we will also have to press it to extract the absorbed vodka. L: it is starting to _finally_ taste like coconut, but it has a long way to go. E: it has a long way to go, but it's finally starting to taste like coconut, and it has some nice crunchy bits too.

3.13.10 Not really done, but we're sick of it.

We finally got around to filtering the coconut vodka. We first ran the vodka through a wire strainer to get out the large chunks of coconut. The coconut seemed to have absorbed some of the vodka, so we wanted to press it. We tried a french press, but that didn't work at all. So then E came up with the bright idea to put the coconut in a colander and use a bowl to press on it. That method worked pretty well and we were able to get some of the vodka out. We had started with 750 ml, and in the end we had 700ml, which is not bad at all given that we'd tasted it multiple times during the infusion process. We ran it through the gold coffee filter and declared it done.

Our thoughts on this infusion: It would not be something E would want to do again. There is not enough coconut flavor to make it worth it. He said, "I'd rather buy a coconut rum." It still has a medium vodka burn and moderate coconut taste. It's not as strongly flavored as we'd like our infusions to be. The burn decreases when its on the rocks.

Recipe

750 ml vodka

2.5 cups grated coconut

1 tsp sugar

Infusion time: 3 months.

The vodka needs at least another round of infusion to really make the coconut flavor strong.

Kiwi

11.22.09 Kiwi (half size)

1/2 cup sliced kiwi, 1/2 t sugar and 12.5 oz Svedka vodka. We packed the kiwi in the cup pretty tightly so we ended up using just over 1.5 kiwis.

12.20.09 Slow progress

Almost a month later, and the flavor is still pretty weak. We should have switched out the fruit sooner but we were busy. We removed the kiwi and replaced it with 2 sliced kiwi (just over 3/4 cup) and added 1/2 teaspoon of sugar.

12.31.09 Is it good?

E: there is a distinct kiwi aftertaste, not much vodka burn, but the beginning taste is unpleasant. L: This tastes bad at the beginning, doesn't burn and fades into something acceptable, but not good.

In an attempt to fix this up, we took some vodka out to taste/experiment with. E mixed in some sugar which made it taste better. He then added a bit of salt, which L thought made it taste like a margarita.

2.21.10 Done! And surprisingly good.

Filtered. L: the flavor improved. The kiwi after taste is pretty good. This definitely is not for drinking straight. E: "Actually it's not that bad. Took for $*%!ing ever, but it's not that bad. I could deal with that." We're surprised that this one improved so much.

Mango

11.22.09 Mango (one half size and two test sizes)


We had intended to do a full size mango infusion, but as we were about to put it together, E got the idea that we should try the infusion with salt, instead of sugar. L did not take well to this, so we agreed to do some tests.

Mango - control: 1/2 c sliced mango and 12.5 oz Svedka vodka.

Mango - sugar: 1/4 c sliced mango, 1/4 t sugar and 6.25 oz Svedka vodka.

Mango - salt: 1/4 c sliced mango, 1/4 t salt and 6.25 oz Svedka vodka.

12.20.09 More mango

Replaced the Mango in all sample sizes. Added 6.25 oz of Svedka to the salt version since it was too salty. Yuck!

12.31.09 Taste tests

Mango w/ salt.

Lissa says: This was absolutely disgusting! Apparently I did the unhappy bunny dance when I tried this, before running to the sink to spit it out. E's reaction was more calm. The flavor was still too salty, even after trying to dilute it by adding another 6.25 oz of vodka. It might make a good margarita. L thinks that it won't even be good for that. This version of the mango infusion is clearer than the other two. We decided that is an absolute failure.

Mango w/ sugar.

E: slightly less disgusting, due to not being so salty. L agrees, but still does not like it.

Mango - control.

This one was the most cloudy and it was a deeper yellow in color than the other two. We also both agree that it was less disgusting than its salt and sugar siblings. L: it would be just ok, except that it has a funky aftertaste. E: this would go best in some sort of margarita mix.

2.21.10. The results are in!

Filtered all 3.

The salted one was awful! Just too much salt. We pitched it. This is the first one that we've poured down the sink. In the future, salt could be useful but we need to use a lot, lot less.

Sugar, Control. Tasted pretty much the same. We both thought they were ok. Probably not worth doing a mango infusion again, or would have to have a 3rd round of mangoes put in.

Almond

11.22.09 Almond (half size)

1/2 cup chopped Almonds and 12.5 oz Fris vodka. We chose Fris because we thought the almond flavor would be too subtle and may be overtaken by the stronger flavor in the Svedka vodka.

12.31.09

We've tasted this one a couple times since it was started. The flavor is finally coming along nicely. It has a very distinct almond taste at the beginning, but leaves quite a burn at the end. We're going to let this one go longer, in hopes of losing more of the burn.

2.21.10 After 3 months - Done for now.

Filtered the vodka finally. The almond 'skins' were faded and the interior was discolored to a light brown. On top of the vodka was a fine sheen of almond oil. E: the flavor is very light and still has lots of vodka burn. Tastes like almond, but the almond flavor would be lost if it was mixed with anything. L agrees. We'd like to do a second round of infusion on this one.

Recipe

750 ml vodka

1 cup chopped almonds

Infusion time: 3 months.

This would be improved by adding another 1 cup of almonds and infusing again.

Vodka notes

Quantity Scalings

750 ml = 1 bottle = 25 oz

375 ml = 1/2 bottle = 12.5 oz

187.5 ml = 1/4 bottle = 6.25 oz

Barton

08.27.09

750 ml $8

We decided to try something new, and filter a cheap vodka to see if it could be improved. We were inspired to try this because of the success it had for the Mad Scientists.

E: Not as bad as I thought it would be, but I'm the hangover would be nasty
L: Has a funky taste at the beginning, but not nearly as bad as I thought it would be, but a definite burn at the end.

Barton, 4x filtered in the Brita
E: more watered down, the flavor wasn't as strong. The difference between filtered and unfiltered wasn't that big, but it did make it a little bit smoother
L: Filtering improved it, lessened the funky flavor at the beginning.

At one of our vodka tasting parties, a guest told us that Mythbusters covered this in an episode. Here's the Mythbusters episode summary (under Vodka Myths III, Top Shelf Filtration)

Boru

08.01.09

Pretty smooth vodka with the usual burn. Decent flavor from initial tasting but nothing exciting.

Chopin

08.29.09

Potato Vodka

L: I like it. It has a bit of flavor and minimal burn.

E: The burn is not too bad. A lot of flavor and a little bit of sweetness to it. I like it. The vodka flavor is one of the best ones I've had yet.

This is our new contender against Fris, to be our default vodka.

Exclusiv

08.02.09

750 ml $??

L: weird taste at the start but a mild burn. (retaste of Fris: slight sweet flavor at beginning mild burn.)

E: Smooth. Didn't taste the flavor at the beginning, but had just done a cinnamon vodka shot. Thought it was pretty good.

Fris

07.06.09

750mL $??, 1.75L $22

4x distilled with an extra use of frozen distilled process.

Smooth with a clean finish.

E: Less burn and smoother than Pinnacle. Has a unique taste - not necessarily great. Even though I like the sweeter beginning of Pinnacle, I prefer Fris because it's smoother.

L: Smoother than Pinnacle. Not nearly as much of a burn, much more mild. Definitely has a taste to it.

Ketel One

08.29.09

Wheat vodka

L: This has more burn than Chopin.

E: More burn and I don't like the flavor as much as Chopin.

Opulent

5x distilled, crafted in America, grain (corn)
02.06.10
E: It's really sweet. Not a bad burn. I'd buy it and infuse with it, esp fruits since it already adds its own natural sweetness. 
L: almost tastes like citrus, sort of sweet. mild burn. (more than Fris).
Conclusion: We like this one and will add it to our top picks list. Fris & Chopin are still better, E says this has a bit of a dirty ending. As the flavor is strong, we would have to be careful to to infuse this with the correct ingredients (e.g. ginger or fruit). This would be bad to infuse with nuts or something with a subtle flavor.

Pinnacle

07.18.09

750 ml $13

Unknown amount of times distilled.

Sweet beginning but more harsh than Fris.

The guy at the liquor store said it's made by the people who do Grey Goose, and it's Grey Goose's little brother.

E: sweet beginning, but of an aftertaste then it burns and burns. I like the sweeter beginning.

L: not too bad. I can tolerate it. It does have a lingering burn.

Platinum

07.06.09

750 ml $??

7x distilled

Midgrade vodka that was pleasant but a bit more harsh vs. Fris.

Silver 


02.06.10 
Triple-distilled. American grain.  
E: not a heavy burn,but the after taste is not good.  
L: bad taste at beginning, light burn at end but bad taste lightens and persists.

Skyy

08.29.09

Wheat vodka

E: Don't like it. It's bitter.

L: Sweet. Minimal burn, definitely less burn than Ketel One. Out of the ones we've tried today, I still like Chopin the best.

Smirnoff

07.18.09

750ml $15

3x distilled

Very harsh vodka.

Stawski Potato

02.06.10
L: slight flavor, but not a bad one. minimal burn, but still more burn than Fris
E: "ew, oh god that was bad". Medium burn, bad flavor - muddley bitter. He tried it again, and said, "That's like drinking Smirnoff" pounded on the table while pointing at me. "And you can quote me on that, but include the pounding and the pointing of the finger."

Svedka


02.06.10
$20/1.75L 5x distilled.  
E: pretty strong burn at the beginning. Not too bad.  
L: sweet, heavy burn at end.
Fris (try for comparison). E: smoother beginning burn at end. Less sweet. Slightly less burn than Svedka. L: smoother, slight burn at end. More flavor neutral (not as sweet) E says if we're looking for a sweeter vodka, then Svedka would be a better buy.

Tenure

08.27.09

$14/750ml, but we had a $5 off coupon.
E: Leaves a warm glow all the way down, and not in the good way
L: Strong taste at beginning, strong burn through out. I hate to say it, but the cheap Barton vodka, unfiltered, tasted better than this. Never again.
Now I know why it had that coupon.

Tenure, twice filtered

E: Better, cut the burn in half.

L: Still strong flavor, but improved. Less burn, but not half as much. Likely could be improved with additional filtering.

We don't want to bother with additional filtering.

UV 

02.06.10

(4x distitlled)

E: "Oh, my god, that's worse than smirnoff, that's disgusting" that's bottom shelf vodka. (L: your'e just enjoying being emphatic now) I am damn right.

L: Bad flavor, bad burn. The flavor traveled up and invaded my nasal cavity, ew.

Vikingfjord 

02.06.10
(5x distilled, potato vodka)
$20 (on sale) for 1.75 L
E: strong burn in beginning. Fades into a sweet starch. 
L: strong flavor at first, E thinks I should call it "lip curling bad flavor" from the expression on my face. Quite the burn which lingers for a while then fades.
Conculsion: we disagree about the quality. E likes it, L doesn't. However we agree that is is not as good as either Fris or Chopin.