Cherry Vodka

From Cheesewiki

(Based on a recipe from SolemnDragon on Slashdot)

You need a bottle or so of good vodka. By good, I mean NOT that cheap stuff you have in your cupboard for mixing when everybody's just trying to get hammered. By "good" here, I mean "doesn't have an aftertaste."

Now you've got your alcohol. Go get cherries. Fresh cherries, ripe enough to be sweet without being overripe and squishy. I get mine from Door County during cherry season. Get at least a pound.

Now, you're also going to need vanilla beans, sugar, and some canning jars. But right now, forget about everything but the booze, the jars, and the fruit.

Take the cherries and wash them. Pit them. Pack them gently into the canning jars, so you don't bruise them and have plenty of air. That's where the vodka's going to go.

Pour the vodka in on top. Shake the jar around a little to get the air bubbles out. Make sure all the fruit is covered. Put the top on the jar, and store it in your fridge. Why the fridge? Because it's cool, it's dark, and you'll see it every day. Which is good, because about every other day or so, you're going to want to give it a shake to stir it up a bit.

Let it sit for 2-4 weeks. The alcohol will be vibrant red and the fruit will be icky-looking and pale. That's okay, it means you're doing this right. Now, measure out about a cup of sugar for every two cups or so of alcohol you used. Before the fruit. So if you used a litre of alcohol, that's... oh, heck... Measure out about two cups of sugar for every litre of alcohol. If you used a 750 millilitre bottle, measure out a cup and a half of sugar. It need not be exact, you're gonna mess with this measurement as you go.

Open up the jar, and dump in about a half a cup of sugar if it's a quart jar. Then add a half inch of vanilla bean. Yes, just drop it in. Really.

Cap it up, shake it up. Try to dissolve most of the sugar. That tablespoon or two on the bottom isn't a big deal. Trust me. You're gonna end up making this stuff so sweet that even Hello Kitty would get cavities, so that little bit on the bottom isn't a big deal. Don't add more, just throw that sucker back in the fridge. Put the rest of the sugar that you measured out into another container for now.

Shake it once or twice a week, so it doesn't think it's unsupervised. This time, leave it for at least a month.

Now things get fun. Pour off the liquid into a new jar. Close that up and put it in the fridge. You've got this jar full of fruit. Ugly, scary fruit.

Dump the fruit out into a bowl. This isn't the first time you're gonna have to do this, so just get used to the idea. Now get the rest of that sugar. If you forgot and used it in your coffee, screw it, just go get a cup of sugar and if you need more we'll get more. Take a spoon and ladle some sugar a tablespoon at a time onto the bottom of the jar. Then start adding the cherries back in. Shake it up, coat them with sugar. For a sugar rush you'll never forget, try a couple as you go, once they're good and covered in sugar. Keep adding fruit and sugar until all the fruit is in the jar and covered in sugar. If you've got sugar left over, throw some more in on top. This drink is not for the insulin impaired.

Now... close it up, shake it up, put it in the fridge for several days.

Hey, look! Where did all that liquid come from?

Miracle of osmosis, baby. Miracle of osmosis.

Now, drain off the liquid and add it to the magic jar holding the earlier, slightly sugared vodka. Dump all the fruit into the bowl again. Go get a juicer, a ricer, or a colander and a something with which to push it through the colander. Maybe a rock. Wash it first. But the point is this: mash all the remaining juice out of the fruit. Add the resulting liquid to the jar; you're gonna have to strain this in a minute anyway. Serve the fruit pulp on ice cream. Don't eat it all by yourself if you're making a lot, unless you don't plan to do anything else that evening...

Now, rinse out a new jar or the jar you just took all that fruit out of. Or use the vodka bottle, if you used all the alcohol. Strain all the drink you've made so far, pour it into jar or bottle, taste it to make sure it's sweet but tastes good, and pout it in the fridge and LEAVE IT ALONE (finally!) for four months or so. Start this mid to late summer and try the final product at the winter holidays.