An experiment: Strawberry Vodka
Ingredients
This recipe scales to any quantity, given a large enough container. I used 250g of strawberries and about 200ml of vodka, and used a pint-sized glass with a lid.
- very ripe strawberries
- just enough vodka to cover (or you could try rum or gin)
- caster/granulated sugar (optional)
- lemon juice (optional)
You'll also need a clean glass container with a lid, such as a jam jar.
Method
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Wash, hull and quarter the strawberries.
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Place the strawberry pieces into your jar. Cover with vodka.
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Leave the jar in the fridge. The flavour and colour of the strawberries will gradually infuse into the vodka.
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Taste the infusion every day. After three days, the vodka had become red and the strawberries a dull-pink. The infusion was gradually becoming more bitter so I decided to stop infusion further. I'm not sure whether the bitterness is a result of changes of the strawberry flavours over time (oxidation?), or if bitter flavours take longer to be extracted from the strawberries (perhaps from the seeds?).
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Strain out strawberries, pressing as much of the liquid out as you can. As most of the flavour has been given up to the vodka, the strawberry-pulp residue is not very useful.
I used a tea-strainer as it had a finer mesh than my sieve. You could also use a coffee filter or cheesecloth.
- Serve chilled with ice cubes, and a little sugar and lemon juice to taste.
- This infusion kept several weeks in the fridge. Unfortunately, I am unable to ascertain the shelf-life as it has never lasted long enough for it to be an issue.