Bacon Vodka

Yes really. It's no secret around here that I like spicy and savory drinks. The perfect Bloody Mary is something I'm still striving towards. I really love my Bloody Mary mix but that doesn't mean it can't use some dolling up with special garnishes, infused liquors or a splash of chili beer... OR ALL OF THEM!

While this is obviously not vegan-vegetarian-healthy in any way, it's also not for the faint of heart/weak of stomach. By the end of the infusing process it looked a little horror science in a jar. Don't worry, I'll show you.

Nate brought a bottle of Skyy vodka to the liquor cabinet when we moved in together. It's not a bad vodka at all, but I prefer Stolichnaya for martinis. I wouldn't want to use a top notch vodka for this project, but also nothing you wouldn't drink in the first place!

I started small, only doing two cups of vodka to infuse. In case this was horrible!

Since I tinker and can't just leave bacon well enough alone I also added a nub of jalapeno.

And a clove or two of garlic...

This is four pieces of bacon (nothing special) fried until still bendy and chopped up.

The jalapeno sliced, garlic chopped and bacon added.

A close up. So later this night, maybe... 4 hours later? I fished out the garlic and jalapeno. They infuse really fast and I didn't want them to totally steal the show from the bacon, which is the point of this experiment!

After 7 days. Ewwww. I kinda forgot about this (because it was so ugly I hid it from myself in a cabinet) and remembered when the next weekend came around and my brain turned to elaborate breakfasts with cocktails.

Firstly, strain out the bacon chunks.

Next I chose to pop this in a freezer for a while to help the fat solidify (didn't I say this wasn't for the faint?!) It didn't help a ton because the vodka took so long to strain that it was melted again by the time it was getting through the coffee filter. Oh yeah, so this takes soooo long to do. My advice, make a set up with a wide strainer (mine is this 8" one) in a bowl and put the filter down inside the strainer. It took me a while to get to this set up and in the process lost a decent amount of vodka to poor straining ideas. If you use the above suggested method you can pour a decent amount into the filter and just leave it. Don't wait and watch. It's worse than watching paint dry.

Filtered and bottled! Due to losing some during the filter process then I had to do a taste tester, it didn't yield much. Wowie... This is some strange stuff! Very strong meat flavor! I need to experiment a little with some sweet/savory contrast cocktails, but for now... Bloody Mary. I cut the extreme bacon flavor by doing 1 ounce bacon vodka, 1 ounce pepper vodka. Mmm a match made in heaven.