Infused vodka is the hottest trend to hit the cocktail circuit since the Moscow Mule with its copper mugs. While it’s difficult to put an exact date on when this flavorful frenzy took off, it’s clear that it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. Which is great for vodka aficionados but begs the question:

What is infused vodka?

There are currently more than a dozen brands of commercially available infused vodkas on the market with flavors ranging from “Orient Apple” to “Raspberry Cocoa” and everything in between. As you can probably tell infusion has to do with adding flavor to the vodka. There are two ways to do this; either during the distillation process or after the fact.

While after the fact flavor infusion has become all the rage, purists will take exception and remind us that, to be technically accurate, only vodka that has had flavor introduced during distillation qualifies as true “infused vodka”. But we’re not purists so for the purposes of this post we’re going to assume that any introduction of flavor to vodka results in a kind of infused vodka.

How to Create Your Own Infused Vodka

There are a couple of common ways for non-distillers to infuse vodka with the flavor of their choice. One method takes a few minutes while the other, more popular way, takes about a week and mimics aspects of the distillation infusion process. Here we’ll look at the more involved process.

• Step 1: Select Your Vodka - If you’re interested in creating a quality finished product you’ll want to start with quality ingredients, which means don’t choose your vodka based on what’s currently in favor with the trench coat crowd. The fact is the quality of vodka ranges from just a hair above straight moonshine to those that are fairly pure, possess subtle flavor nuances of their own and mix well. They’ll be on the middle and upper shelves at the liquor store.
• Step 2: Select Your Flavor - As the flavors mentioned above indicate, all bets are off when it comes to flavoring vodka. Still, you’re goal is not to create the most stank-tastic cocktail experience in the history of planet earth, so try to reign in any extreme impulses. For the purposes of this post we’ll assume you’re after a tropical experience so we’ll limit our choice of flavors to pineapple, mango and perhaps passion fruit.
• Step 3: Prepare Your Ingredients - You don’t want your party guests to be sifting pits through their teeth while they’re sipping on the infused vodka you’ve worked so hard to create. To prevent that unhappy occurrence make sure you thoroughly clean your fresh fruits, slice them up - not too small, not too large - and remove any seeds or other unwanted elements.

  

• Step 4: Place Your Fruit Slices in an Airtight Jar - Assuming you are infusing a liter of vodka with your custom tropical flavoring a single glass jar that seals tightly - like a 32oz mason jar - is ideal. (Try not to use plastic if you can avoid it.) If you only have smaller size jars then split your ingredients up evenly between enough jars to hold the liter of vodka and the fruit.
• Step 5: Infusion - Fill the jar or jars holding the fruit with vodka. Seal tightly and place in the refrigerator to keep cool. To make sure you achieve maximum saturation of the fruit flavors you’re going to do a 1 week infusion process, (although you’re certainly free to adjust the length of the infusion to suit your own tastes). Once a day remove the jar(s) from the fridge and shake well to help the process along.
• Step 6: Strain Your Newly Infused Vodka - When the week is up, remove the jar(s) from the fridge. If you still have the original vodka bottle you may want to return the newly infused vodka there. Set up a funnel with a strainer over the empty bottle and pour your new creation through the strainer. Once the bottle is full, cap it and put it back in the fridge. (Check that! Take a small sample and then cap it and return it to the fridge.)

That’s it. You’re ready to wow the guests at your upcoming party with your delicious infused vodka. As we mentioned earlier, the flavor you choose will be entirely up to you. Common flavors include the aforementioned fruits but various herbs and spices are also popular, as well as everything from chilies to vanilla and even coffee. (I guess with coffee vodka you can kill two birds with one stone: get a bit tipsy and sober up at the same time!)

Try using your fabulous creation as a base liquor for other cocktails as well. You’ll find a ton of recipes online, including several for making ‘Mule’ drinks using infused vodka. Not sure what they’re calling those (“Infused Mules” maybe?) but they sound delicious.