Last year I made homemade limoncello and different flavored Portuguese milk liqueurs with great results. I have been seeing a lot of recipes for infused vodkas and I decided to give it a try. It is a pretty fast and simple process. There are a lot of online resource and recipes available to help you out. I decided to make some fruit flavors-Greeen Apple, Pomegranate, Lemon, and Pineapple. Here is what I did:

The Start: Wash and chop the ingredients you are going to use- I left the skin on the apples and the rind on the lemons. Choose a clean, air-tight jar: quart sized mason jars work well. Place your ingredients inside the jar and fill it with vodka. Cover tightly with the lid and shake a few times.

The Infusion: Store your jars in a cool, dark place and shake it 2-3 times a day for the duration of the infusion. I left all of my jars for 2 weeks (14 days). You can leave different ingredients for a longer or shorter amount of time depending on what you are using and how strong of an infusion you are looking for.

This is what they looked like after one week: The green apple looked really disgusting ick!

The Finish: Once you are all done infusing you will need to take the ingredients out of the jar. Use a fine strainer or paper coffee filter to strain the vodka into another clean jar. I stored mine in similar jars and popped them in the freezer.

Taste Testing Results:

The pomegranate vodka was the clear winner of the bunch. It is super great as a mixer or added to some club soda.

The green apple was super awful. It was everything gross and disgusting about an apple put into a liquid. If I had to do this one over I would probably remove the skins first, not sure if this would help but I don’t think it could make it any worse. Total fail.

The lemon has a really nice lemon flavor with a little sweetness. I used Meyer Lemons which probably made all of the difference, any other type of lemon might give too harsh of a flavor.

The pineapple was my second favorite. It has a very subtle pineapple flavor, but is nice addition to a mixed drink.

It was a fun experiment and I would like to try it with some other ingredients-Watermelon, lavender, coconut, bubble gum…lots of options out there. I might even start moving into flavor combos!

DIY infused vodka is pretty great. Your move.