Booze Time

In celebration of my second (of three) paychecks from my former place of employment, I went out and bought myself a bunch of Mason jars and decided to do some food modification. Step one was pickles. Nothing too fancy, so I won't go into detail. But I made garlicky, dilly pickle spears, garlicky persian pickles (smaller variety of cucumber, left whole), cauliflower, asparagus, red bell peppers, beets, and finally ginger. Blah blah blah, vinegar, water, sugar, salt, spices...

That's not why we're here today. In addition to the pickles, I bought a rather sizable bottle of sub-par vodka (why was I too cheap for the Svedka?) and some fruit, with the intentions of mellowing, flavoring, and enhancing the spirit. I'll start with the easiest one - blood oranges. You can't mix juice with vodka and just let it sit. Sorry. So the zest must be removed (with care to include none of the pith). Using a vegetable peeler, I zested about four washed blood oranges and placed them in a Mason jar with around 600 or so ml of vodka. The flavor progressed from nothing and burny to bitter, to burny, to smooth, fruity, and fresh. Once it reaches smooth, fruity, and fresh, it's time to strain, fine, and bottle. Reusable cork topped bottles tend to work the best for storage.

Next, kumquats. For those of you who don't know what a kumquat is, it's a small citrus fruit with a rather unique sour-orangesque flavor, and edible skin. I sliced them thinly and removed the seeds before candying them in simple syrup. This minimized the tartness of the flesh and bitterness of the pith. It also extracted pectin which gives the final spirit more body. That having been said, the kumquats and vodka were combined in a Mason jar and left to sit. For this, the flavor went from burny to sour, to bitter, to sweet and balanced. Again, straining and fining is key to ensuring a clear product, free of particulate.

Finally, I decided to do rambutan. Rambutan is a very tropical tasting fruit from South-East Asia. It's somewhat like a lychee, but with long, red velcro hooks covering the surface. I opted to maintain the shape of the peeled fruit, rather than cut them up. I'm not entirely sure this was a good idea. The flavor of the final spirit ended up not quite as fresh, strong, or fruity as I had intended. All told, however, It was a lot of fun and the spirits turned out pretty pleasant. They're not good straight up, they're okay on the rocks, but where they really shine is in cocktails (think blood orange spiked margarita or rambutan saketini).
Here are the three jars, with rambutan in the front, blood orange back left, and kumquat back right. I hope you can get some sense of the color and body. I'm thinking you can't.