Not acutal flaskes used...=)
Last week was Dave Sanders’s bachelor party. I wanted to make something special that would look cool and get everybody really drunk at the same time…=) My solution? Skittle infused Vodka and Vodka infused Gummy Bears. A few months ago I stumbled upon the recipe for Skittle infused Vodka over here at Mixthatdrink.com. The instructions were very clear and I only had to change a few things based on my own observations while making my first few batches, some assumptions and a difference in materials used to make my own batch. As for the gummy bears my friend Gillian told me about them and while the instructions over at again mixthatdrink.com…it left out the fact that I would have to air out the gummy bears to let them firm up a bit…but more on that later.
Skittle infused vodka…I’m gonna assume that you all read through the recipe at Mix That Drink…so I won’t bore you with the details as to how to make it…but with what changes I had to make…=) First off the recipe stated that the quality of the vodka didn’t matter too much but to not use the really cheap vodka i.e. Vons brand vodka. My assumption there told me that I could use what I have deemed a C grade vodka (first mistake) which was Smirnoff Triple Distilled Vodka. I also picked up some plastic flasks (second mistake) as I couldn’t find the nice glass ones that they used in the short amount of time I had. I decided to start out with the red skittles (third mistake) and after I let the infusion sit in the freezer for 2 hours…I tried it. Yeah tasted like medicine. I tried a second shot and swirled it in my mouth a bit…yup medicine. Turns out that after a bit more research I found another site that said that I have to use a B or A grade vodka and that out of all the flavors…the red ones tasted the worst. Down the drain it went. After that failure I went out and bought some Kettle One Vodka which I decided would be a B grade vodka. The other site also stated that the purple skittles tasted the best so I infused the Kettle One with the purple, stuck it in the plastic flask, stuck it in the freezer and 2 hours later…medicine…although not as bad. I decided to keep this batch cause I didn’t want to waste anymore booze. Dejected I tried the yellow skittles but this time since I had used the last of the vodka I put it back in to the original glass bottle. Two hours later…it tasted like yellow skittles!!! I deduced from this that I need to use glass to store the vodka infusion and not plastic…cause I guess plastic will change the taste of the infusion. A few other things I learned was the recipe said to just stack 4 coffee filters together and use that to filter the infusion…bad idea…at least for the filters I used cause when I tried to use 4 eventually it just stopped flowing through. I figured that the white gunk was clogging the filters so I decided to just use one at a time….but even just using one at a time didn’t work so I used one till the flow stopped then switched to another filter. I stopped filtering when all I had to use was one filter. They also say you can use paper towels…but I found that they absorbed about a quarter shot per filter run…and that’s just unacceptable =)
What about the vodka infused gummy bears? Not much there really just that (I think) I have to air them out for a few hours to let them firm up and get less slimy and that I probably have to use again a B grade vodka…cause I used the rest of the C grade to make them. They turned out okay…but I’ll have to play around with them to figure out the best way to firm them up.
Quote of the day!
“Jesus turned water into wine…I turned a whole student loan into Vodka. Your move, Jesus…”
–JSD (Just Some Dude)
Great post – thanks for sharing!