Homemade Infused Liquor and Spirits

Spicing Up Your Drinks, One Ingredient at a Time 

Liquor and spirits hold a dear place in the heart of any cocktail enthusiast or casual drinker. They have so much potential to cater to any personal taste! There are an unbelieveable amount of cocktail recipes available to whip up anything you feel like at a moment’s notice, whether it be sweet, spicy, zesty, refreshing, aromatic, or sour. If you like your drinks, you’ll likely have some spirits at home like vodka, rum, or tequila.

This is where home infusion comes in. To add an extra level of customisation to your drinks, infused liquor and spirits is the way to go. You might already have everything you need to make tasty, infused liquor so, let’s see how to infuse spirits from the comfort of your home!

 

What is Infusion?

Infusion, when speaking in drink terms, essentially means to impart the flavour of an ingredient into a liquid. Tea is one of the most common infusions that people drink every day, as you let the teabag steep in the hot liquid to extract the flavour of the leaves. When we are talking infused liquor or spirits, this involves leaving spices, herbs, fruits, or vegetables to soak in the liquid until these ingredients impart their flavour into the drink.

Bottle shops now sell a large variety of different infused liquor such as the sweet-spiced cinnamon flavour of Fireball, the herbal infusion of Jägermeister, or the range of Absolut vodka with flavours like Vanilla, Passionfruit, Lime, Raspberry etc.

However, it’s not hard to complete this process at home with a few select bottles of cheap liquor and some good quality ingredients. This allows you to experiment with the strength of flavour and opens up so many new fantastic flavours you just can’t buy in store.

 

How to Infuse Liquor and Spirits

All you need is a large glass jar or bottle, your selected spirit, and the spices/fruits/herbs for infusion! We would highly recommend using a jar with a wide neck, as dried spices and fruits can expand greatly when left in the liquid.

When deciding how long you should leave to infuse, think about the strength of the flavour of the ingredient and how large it is. If you were to use chillies to flavour spirits, the spicier the chilli, the quicker it will infuse! Additionally, larger surface area equals quicker infusion.

For example, if you were to place one large Ghost chilli, a stick of cinnamon, 1 clove of star anise, and 1 cardamom pod into some vodka, it wouldn’t exactly work like you hoped. The large chilli has an intensely strong flavour and large surface area so it will infuse incredibly quickly, and the flavour will be intensely strong. You wouldn’t even be able to taste the cardamom or star anise.

Try only leave stronger ingredients like chilli for a couple hours before taking it out or put stronger flavours in at the end of the infusion to maintain a nice balance. Just make sure to taste every 12 to 24 hours to make sure your drink is on the right track.

 

Great Example Infusions

To get you started, we've listed a few basic infusions to try out at home, with cocktail recipes featuring this infused liquor to come in the near future! Remember to taste as you go and pull out your infusion ingredients when you feel comfortable with the flavour.

You may see a few repeat ingredients on here, but that just means these ingredients are too good to just leave out. Ingredients such as cardomom provide a nice secondary or tertiary flavour that provides a nice depth of flavour, keeping the liquor from becoming too one dimensional. Check them out here:

• Arrack – Arrack is a spirit made in Sri Lanka, India, and other parts of East Asia. Our favourite is the popular Sri Lankan brand, Ceylon Arrack. Distilled from the sap of coconut flower, this spirit has a beautiful golden colour and a flavour profile similar to rum (Arrack can also be made from sugar cane, so that makes sense).Try infusing with these ingredients to bring out a sweet, musky flavour perfect to sip on the rocks, in an Old Fashioned, or in a rum-based cocktail.
  
  
• Cardomom
• Cinnamon
• Cloves
• Orange Peels

 

• Vodka – Vodka is a common spirit for infusion because it has a neutral flavour. This means that the possibilities for different flavours are endless! With this infusion, we are trying for a flavour similar to masala chai, so if you feel like it, try and add a Dilmah teabag of Ceylon Tea to increase that likeness.
  
  
• Cinnamon
• Cardamom
• Cloves
• Nutmeg
• Sugar
• Ceylon Tea

 

• Gin – Gin is a little harder to infuse with different flavours because they already go through an initial infusion before being distilled for a second time. The perfumed flavour and aroma of gin is usually a result of juniper berries and a host of other ingredients, so be careful when pairing up ingredients. This set of ingredients are sure to add a nice freshness to the spirit, setting this infusion up with flavours commonly found in gin-based cocktails!
  
  
• Green Tea
• Ginger
• Cucumber
• Lemon Peel

 

• Tequila – Tequila is a spicy, invigorating spirit already, and by adding a few simple ingredients for infusion, you can take your mixology to the next level. Adding a bit of chilli is a great way to bring your margaritas to the next level and is a lot more subtle than shaking in fresh crushed chilli. If you don’t want too much heat, remove the seeds beforehand and taste every couple hours to make sure the spice doesn’t go overboard!

• Fresh Chilli
• Lime Peel