Last Friday night, I tried out the grape Jolly Ranchers Vodka; in fact, a few of us did. We all came to the same conclusion: It’s not bad at all, but it also tastes like cough syrup; verily, something was missing.
Instantly, I knew what I had to do.
Thinking of the color and the taste, I began channeling Homer Simpson. I poured some of this “purple drank” into a mug, then I topped it off with a little bit of overproof liquor. Immediately thereafter, I set it on fire. And much like Homer Simpson, “I don’t know the scientific explanation, but fire made it good.”
If you get a chance to make some of the grape Jolly Ranchers Vodka, try topping it off with, say, a teensy bit of 151, and setting it on fire. If you’re unfamiliar with flammable drinks, you’re supposed to blow out the fire, and make sure it’s out before you ingest the beverage. Otherwise, you run the risk of ending up like these guys:
Another month, another candy to infuse with my liquor.
Once you’ve mixed as many cocktails as I have, you start to get over the regular way of making drinks, and want to find new ways to create something delicious. Hence me trying out the Skittles thing last month. And while the Skittles vodka tasted like, well, Skittles, the resulting beverage was way too thick for me to really enjoy it without feeling like I was sipping on liquid diabetes. Two different friends independently suggested I try Jolly Ranchers next, so I gave that a shot with both rum and vodka (not at the same time).
The process is so simple, it barely merits it’s own outline, but here’s one anyway; I’ll describe the process with vodka, but it’s the same for with rum:
Step One: Get some Vodka. As with the Skittles infusion, going cheap is okay, but not that much cheaper than, say, Absolut. If you really want a cheap vodka that is pretty good quality, I recommend Svedka.
Step Two: Get some Jolly Ranchers. I went to the supermarket and got one of those big-ass bags of Jolly Ranchers; there were over 20 candies of each flavor in the package, which is just about the right number for my purposes.
Step Three: Separate the flavors, and add to the Vodka. From a 750ml bottle of Vodka, I made two batches; that is, I poured out half the bottle into an empty bottle, and put a different colored batch of candies into each bottle. In the picture above, you can see that I chose Sour Apple and Grape.
Step Four: Just set it and forget it. Yes, just like the Ronco chicken cooker thing, you can just leave this one be. You can speed the process up if you shake it, but leaving it overnight should be cool.
Step Five: Chill, pour and enjoy. This is a lot easier than the Skittles vodka, insofar as you don’t have to do anything to it once the infusion has taken place. No messy straining necessary.
I also tried this out with rum, as I stated before; for the rum, I used Wray and Nephew’s white overproof rum from Jamaica. I didn’t really like the mixture as much; because it’s much stronger than normal rum, it overpowered the candy’s flavor. It might work with other light rums, but I’m biased towards Wray and Nephew, so I won’t bother with those. If any of you try it out with, say, Bacardi or anything like that, let me know how it turns out. I think rum would work well with candy, because it’s made from sugar cane, so it could complement the flavor nicely.
The vodka mixture I liked; in fact, I liked it better than the Skittles vodka. I still have plenty of Jolly Ranchers left, too, so I may be making these for friends in the upcoming weeks. Lots of birthdays coming up! I’ll be playing with these infusions a lot in the near future, so you’ll be seeing a few more of these soon!
Since you fine folks seem to like bootlegging history, I figured I’d talk about a more modern incarnation of the practice.
A couple of years ago, a story emerged out of eastern Europe that a group of smugglers in Russia and Estonia figured out an ingenious way to run vodka - through a two kilometer pipeline.
Back in 2004, some organized crime thugs hired a few crafty engineers and some eager construction workers, and secretly built a a huge pipeline through a reservoir along the Russian-Estonian border. Upon construction, the smugglers were able to pump around 1,640 gallons of vodka across before they were caught.
Just like in the past, the reason for doing so was to beat the tariffs on imports: In the European Union (which Estonia joined in 2004), a decent bottle of vodka costs more than it does here in the States - in fact, a top shelf bottle of vodka can fetch hundreds of euros per bottle. In Russia, on the other hand, vodka costs about as much as water does (in some places, even less!) - bottles can run for as little as two bucks. All told, the runners beat approximately $79,000 in import taxes.
As smart an idea as it was, there was an especially simple reason why they got caught: vodka from the tap sucks. The quality was so janky, nobody wanted to buy it. Eventually, they found a college town in Estonia to dump the stuff off on students who didn’t know any better, but the process of moving it to the new location tripped them up. The “Five-O” caught some gangsters in the middle of Estonia’s capital city, Tallinn, with a truck carrying over 300 gallons of the hooch.
Even though it was unsuccessful in the end, it didn’t stop the copycats: in 2006, Estonian border guards found another pipeline, this time running through the Narva River. In that case, however, the guards caught wind of the operation before construction was complete.
This is, perhaps, one of the best tasting horrible concepts I’ve seen since the Luther Burger.
This threat to your body’s future ability to metabolize glucose comes our way via This is Why You’re Fat - as if that’s a surprise to anyone. Evidently, this drink is actually quite simple: you mix whatever your vanilla-flavored vodka of choice is with a Mickey D’s shake. I modified this recipe a wee bit from the original, known as the Nuggetini, which I traced to This Recording.
McTini - Recipe (For two):
1 lg. Mcdonalds Brand Chocolate Milkshake
4 oz. Vanilla Vodka
2 oz. Creme de Cacao ( I wouldn’t bother going top shelf with the Godiva brand on this one, obvsly.)
I could reiterate that this drink is for two serving sizes, but if you’re really that interested in making a cocktail wherein the main ingredient comes from McDonalds, you’re probably not too worries about portion control here. Anyway, mix all the ingredients, stir, and serve in two dixie cups; why even bother getting your cocktail glasses dirty with this one?
In one of the single most epic things I’ve ever borne witness to, a guy by the name of Jamie Price created his own bartending, beer-slinging robot, and named it Bar2D2. Evidently, it’s a radio-controlled mobile unit that has a motorized beer elevator, ice/mixer drawer, shot pourer, and neon lighting that responds, with flashing, to music and other sounds.
Skittles-Infused Vodka is a HUGE thing right now. So huge, really, that I wasn’t even going to post about it, because I figure the topic was already handled. The problem, though, is that a lot of the other posts on the subject are really long and filled with vague or unnecessary details, and a couple of them didn’t work as well as the others, etc etc. So, I figured I’d condense the process of infusing vodka with Skittles down to the simple, easy-to-follow recipe format that you guys have come to love on this site.
That is, I hope you love it. Wait, you love it… right?
Skittles Vodka - Recipe:
1.75 Liter Bottle of Vodka (You don’t need Grey Goose, but nothing cheaper than Absolut or Smirnoff)
1 Pound Bag of Skittles
Phase One: Open the Skittles, and, using five bowls, separate the candies by color. You should have 60 Skittles of each flavor. Get five empty, 16oz water bottles, and pour 6oz of vodka into each bottle. (To scale upwards or downwards with this recipe, it’s 10 Skittles for every 1 ounce of vodka.) Next, pour the Skittles into the bottles; one color per bottle.
Phase Two: Once you have the different bottles set up, you’re going to shake each one vigorously. The more you shake, the better. Shaking won’t dissolve the Skittles completely, as they’re semi-hard candies, so you also have to leave them alone overnight (the more you’re making, the longer it’ll take to dissolve the Skittles, of course), so that the vodka will dissolve the candies as well. Feel free to shake them again from time to time while you’re waiting for them to dissolve; it helps speed along the process.
Phase Three: By now, the Skittles are dissolved, and the vodka has been infused. Problem is, there’s some excess white muck left behind from the candy. What we need to do now is strain out - and bottle up - each individual flavor. For a strainer, keep it simple and just use paper towel, unless you have coffee filters lying around. If you want to minimize the amount of mess you create, strain out the liquid into a jar, measuring cup, or any other wide-mouthed container, preferably through a funnel. If the vodka is too thick for your liking, you can either strain it again, or mix in more vodka. Funnel your infused vodka into some glass bottles; if you need help finding some, The Container Store and Specialty Bottle each have fairly inexpensive bottles.
Congrats, you’re done! Now, put the bottles into the freezer, let them get nice and frosty, and taste the rainbow. It’ll be really strong; almost all vodka, after all. They’re also really sweet, as one would expect. There are lots of different ways you can serve this up depending on your taste, so feel free to get creative. After all, you made it!
Part of the fun of knowing a lil’ somethin’ somethin’ about mixology is laughing at all of the goofy, contrived gimmicks people some up with related to alcohol. It’s even more entertaining when it’s a fancy gimmick, purported to be the next big high-end, gourmet dining experience.
Today, I present to you: the Edible Martini.
Speaking of gimmicks, new contest coming out on Monday!
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