Boozy McGuzzles

It is autumn in New York, which means it’s time for delicious, delicious apples. It’s also time for brown liquor (no, it’s brown liquor time year round, who am I kidding.) I decided to branch out on the infusion experiments and try something a little weirder: infusing bourbon.

Sources on the internet were of pretty mixed feelings about the idea of infusing bourbon, ranging from IT’S BLASPHEMY to IT’S BRILLIANT. I like brilliant blasphemy, so I got out my infusing jug and crammed a bunch of apples into some Maker’s Mark.

Ingredients:
1 750 ml bottle of bourbon — I didn’t want to go with anything too fancy or distinctive here, so I just went with middle of the road Maker’s, and that worked out well.
3-4 apples, cut into small chunks — I used a mix of honeycrisp and gala apples, since those were the best available

Put the whole mess in your handy infusion jar or jug and leave it there for 5-7 days. I did mine for just five days and the apple flavor was very mild, just a nice hint on the top of the palate; next time I might leave it a little longer and see how it comes out. The end result is still perfectly bourbony, but with just a little extra sweetness and dimension of flavor. Mmm, deliciously blasphemous.

And did I make cocktails with this? I sure did! Check back soon for those recipes.

The infusion experiments continue! I continue to work with rum, because I think vodka is basically bullshit. I know it’s the easiest of things to infuse, and that is perhaps exactly why you won’t see me trying to infuse anything into it. I’ve got big dreams! Big flavor combination dreams.

Anyway, I made some vanilla-ginger sugar syrup a while back to use in the Endless Possibilities cocktail, and found the flavor combination to be full of promise. So, after I made the important purchase of vanilla beans in bulk (because holy crap in a tiny glass bottle, those things are expensive if you buy them at the grocery store. I bought mine through BulkFoods.com and saved a lot of money) it was time to infuse again.

Ingredients:
1 750ml bottle of light rum
2 vanilla beans, split down the middle and fanned out
1/2 cup of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped into medium sized pieces

Put all of these into a large jar or bottle (I used my beer growlers yet again) and leave in a cool place for 3-5 days. When it’s done, you’ll want to filter the solids out with a cheesecloth, or—since I have never in my life owned cheesecloth—a coffee filter or two.

The rum takes on a lovely dark amber color. The taste is very vanilla up front, with a bite on the back end like a good ginger beer. Cocktails using this mix are still in the testing phase and will appear here soon, but until then, this would make a nice rum and coke!

Verano Verde

As mentioned in my previous post about honeydew-infused rum, I had a cocktail invention in mind when I infused the rum. And that invention is this: a honeydew-basil mojito. Because I prefer cocktail names that are more poetic than descriptive, though, I gave the drink the name “Verano Verde”. It’s a beautiful green color, and tastes just like summer should.

Ingredients:
2 oz. honeydew-infused rum
1 oz lime juice (or the juice of one lime, if you don’t want to get fussy about it)
3-4 basil leaves
1 teaspoon sugar
club soda

Muddle the basil leaves and the sugar in the bottom of a glass (buying a muddler was one of the best things I’ve done; I got this nice one at Crate & Barrel, but the back of a spoon will do in a pinch). When they’re sufficently muddled, add ice, lime juice, rum, give it a stir, and top up with club soda. If you’re feeling fancy, you could garnish with a piece of honeydew; I just put frozen pieces of the rum-soaked honeydew from the infusion in my guests’ glasses.

The drink is fresh, green, refreshing and clean. Lovely for a hot summer night.

Honeydew Infused Rum

A while ago, I had a delicious dessert that involved pieces of frozen watermelon. It was so good that I kept thinking about it later, and thought, “Say, I should infuse watermelon into some sort of liquor.” I followed this with the thought “Watermelon? How pedestrian. Let’s go with honeydew!” And finally, I had the thought “Now, how do you go about infusing things?”

After some minor research on the internet, I found that it was easier than I’d ever thought. Booze + flavored item + time = infusion! I decided to go with rum, because I pretty much call bullshit on vodka. Plus I had a pretty brilliant cocktail idea forming that will be gone into in a later post.

The ingredients are pretty simple:
1 750ml bottle of light rum
1/2 a honeydew melon, cut into small chunks.

I put the whole mess into the only thing I had lying around that could hold that amount of liquids and solids: a growler from the Whole Foods Beer Room. It was dark glass, had a resealable lid, and could hold half a gallon of stuff, so it was perfect. I didn’t refrigerate it, but left it in my dark and mostly air-conditioned living room for eight days. Other fruits may take less time, but my dear friend the internet suggested at least a week for melon.

The end result was a lovely pale green liquid. The taste was smooth and cool, the flavor of the honeydew evening out any harshness of the rum. The best part was the aftertaste, this flood of cool honeydew flavor on my tongue and in my nose.

This is only the first of my infusion experiments; I’ve got grand plans for the future in the world of things to soak in a bottle of booze.