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 This week I want to keep it short and sweet. The Vesper, or as some call it, the Vesper Lynd, is a drink named after a Bond girl. In fact, it’s the only drink ever invented by a fictional character named after another fictional character. If this is all going over your head, the Vesper is the martini that James Bond orders in Casino Royale, and he later decides to name it after his love interest. Indeed, this is the drink that inspired the graphics for Summit Sips.
Vesper 3 oz gin 1 oz vodka .5 oz Lillet Blanc
Combine in a shaker, add ice and shake to chill. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a twist of lemon.
Bond eyes his vesper.
For a completely fictional set of circumstances, Ian Flemming created a cocktail that is actually pretty good. As martinis go, this is
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 Last year I infused some vodka with rhubarb and it turned out so good that it was gone too quickly. In fact, I believe this was the fastest we went through an infusion ever. I’ve done everything from chili peppers and pineapple to coffee and vanilla, but the rhubarb is my favorite. This year, I decided to try it again and I let it go a little longer to see how the flavor intensified. It turns out that the flavor of rhubarb develops very quickly and after only one day you can see a its gorgeous pink tint and smell the effects. This time I let it sit over the long holiday weekend, and I think I have another winner!
Infusing vodka is about the easiest mixology adventure you can take, and a great way to get started thinking about the flavors you can achieve in a cocktail. To
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  Up on the column of the Rain Vodka still. I thought I would post a final wrap up regarding my recent trip to Kentucky. I know everyone out there has been clicking “refresh” waiting for the next posts, so I figured a nice conclusion was probably in order. I also wanted to say a few words about another product I brought back home with me from the Buffalo Trace Distillery.
It’s one thing to take a long weekend and go for a drive. It’s something else to set a destination that is 4 states away and takes a full 24 hours to get there and back. Yet, despite the long time spent behind the wheel, Louisville is definitely within reach by car from the Twin Cities. I know the area has a lot more to offer visitors than we had time to see but we focused on the Bourbon Trail®. This was also an excuse to see the countryside, visit antique shops and stay at charming B&Bs. The bourbon was truly a bonus.
Another bonus was the discovery of Rain vodka. Rain has been around since 1997, and you don’t have to go to Kentucky to buy it.
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  This week, I am doing something a little different. I will give you the recipe for a cocktail to enjoy, but St-Germain isn’t the name, it’s an ingredient. Although it has been around for a few years now, I find that most people have still never heard of it—unless you are a cocktail geek like me.
So, what is this St-Germain stuff? Magic Elixir? Nectar of the Gods? Secret potion? Actually, you might say it’s all of the above. St-Germain is a new liqueur made from fresh elderflower blossoms. The elder, or more specifically, the European Black Elder grows throughout Europe, northwest Africa and southwest Asia. From the foothills of the Alps, the spring flowers are hand-picked and brought to the distillery where a secret process is used to extract their essence. The production of the liqueur combines old world techniques and ingredients with new processes that ensure quality and consistency. Production is limited and vintage bottles are individually numbered.
The use of elderflowers is not a new concept. Elderflower cordial is actually quite easy to make and has been enjoyed by europeans for centuries. However, the cordial is often very sweet—sometimes requiring ten-to-one dilution with water or soda—and inconsistent flavor strength makes it hard to use in a drink recipe. But, now that we have St-Germain, some very exciting cocktails have appeared.
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 If you are seeing this for the first time, be sure to check out Part 1 for the first half of the story.
 Straining the cranberries With that out of the way, I want to repeat that this was an experiment. Why am I saying this again? Well, I guess it’s because my final liqueur ended up a little different than I expected. So, without further ado, here’s the rest of the story:
Strain, Filter and Repeat
Whether I am making a liqueur such as my limoncello, doing a vodka infusion, or experimenting with some other unusual homemade concoction, I find that investing a little more effort in the filtration pays dividends in the quality and often clarity of the final product. The cranberry liqueur was no exception. Continuing where I left off, the next step in this process was opening the infusion jar and pouring the liquid through a fine mesh strainer. I needed to do this in sections because my strainer is not very big. After pouring most of the liquid through and about half of the berry chunks, I began pressing the pieces with the back of a spoon to squeeze any remaining juice from them. I then transferred the chunks to a plate lined with cheesecloth. Finally, the remaining pieces of cranberries were poured into the strainer and I could rinse out the jar.
 Filtering through paper towels saves time This left me with a nice portion of high-alcohol cranberry extract and a pile of berry chunks on cheesecloth. After rolling the cheesecloth into a sort of burrito, I was able to twist and squeeze every last drop of extract from them. I believe this is an important step because the strongest flavors are likely right next to the fruit, if not locked up inside. Having discarded the fruit, I was left with a deep red extract. What looked a lot like fresh squeezed cranberry juice was deceptively high in alcohol and still contained a lot of tiny fruit particles.
 Final filtration with a coffee filter If you have read a few of my other recipes, this should be pretty familiar, because the next steps involve finer filtration. The fine mesh strainer is a good start, but I like to filter everything I make like this through a coffee filter. However, if I jump directly to the coffee filter now, it will take hours to drain through. That’s because the larger particles tend to clog a fine filter very quickly and stop the flow. My solution is simple: paper towels. By starting the filtration using a paper towel, I am getting most of the big stuff out. I usually pass the extract through paper towels twice, discarding the paper with each pass. By the time I am ready to use a coffee filter, most of the particles have been removed and the liquid drains through very quickly. This leaves me with a very clear extract.
 Testing, 1, 2, 3
The final step involves cutting the alcohol to a reasonable level with water and adding sugar to sweeten the liqueur. I can accomplish both by using a simple syrup which is nothing more than sugar dissolved in water. The big question is how much? This is where my experiment took a turn toward the unexpected. I had originally thought I would need to cut the alcohol by about a factor of four, and based on other recipes, do so with a 1:1 simple syrup. In other words, I would mix equal portions of sugar and water, then mix this syrup with my extract at a ratio of about 4:1. Since I always have simple syrup around for cocktails (and you should too) this was easy to test. I started by measuring 1/4 ounce of extract and adding 1 ounce of my simple syrup. The result was disappointing. Not only did this taste far too sweet—it lost almost every indication of cranberry flavor. I quickly realized that while I had originally added 2 cups of alcohol to my berries, I had squeezed even more extract from them! I was diluting my mixture too much.
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 Well, it’s that time of the year when apples start to replace the tomatoes at farmer’s market. Last weekend, a vendor was selling bags of fresh cranberries, so I decided to try to get a jump on the holidays by creating a cranberry liqueur.
I want everyone to know that this is an experiment. While I have made lots of liqueurs in the past, I have not made one with cranberries. For this reason, I cannot post a complete recipe which is why this is only Part 1. I will describe my process in detail here now so you too can get started if you like. If you’d rather follow a completed recipe, there are plenty of them online. I even found a commercial product called Boggs Cranberry Liqueur, but it seems Boggs is no longer in business. So, in the spirit of trying new and exciting things, and with an open mind about the results, I am going to attempt my own version of this liqueur and share the outcome.
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  A couple of weeks ago, while strolling through the local grocery store a few blocks away, I decided to take a quick look at the fresh berries. Nestled between some raspberries and blueberries was thin row of little clear plastic boxes of a fruit I don’t see very often. I took a closer look and saw that they were red currants. Of course, I knew what these were—I have an antique botany lithograph hanging in my kitchen of this fruit. But how often do you see them fresh in the grocery store? Then it hit me: I need to infuse vodka with these little babies!
I shoved a pint under my arm and headed for the register. I figured if my version came anywhere near Absolut Kurant, I’d be happy. The first thing I needed to do was to wash and de-stem the berries. At first, it looked like there would be only a few stems, but as I got going, I realized that every berry was still attached. If you don’t know currants, they look like a double row of tiny grapes on a thin green vine. It’s easy enough to pluck them off, but this part took a little care so as not to completely rip them apart.
 After I had the stems removed and I had picked over the bunch to eliminate a few bad, shriveled berries, I needed to wash them. One technique that works reasonably well is to simply put them back into the plastic container they came in. This lidded box has ventilation slits all the way around, so it makes for a good colander. I ran water over them right through the container, but being that the box was small, I decided to transfer them into a ceramic bowl to give them more room to move around while I removed any dirt or scum.
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Some of you who watch the reality cooking competition show called Top Chef may have been enjoying this season which takes place in Las Vegas. Yesterday’s Elimination Challenge pitted the men against the women to provide food parings with cocktail shots at a bachelor and bachelorette party. One of the shots was a Moscow Mule.
First of all, is the Moscow Mule a shot? I suppose it could be, if you served a small portion in a shot glass. By that logic, I suppose anything could be a shot. How about a Cosmopolitan shot, or a beer shot? Be that as it may, my question isn’t about the size of the drink but that it was made using grapefruit juice. It’s not that I don’t think it would taste good—on the contrary—I think it could be a good combination. I just don’t think it’s a Moscow Mule.
Recently attributed to Hollywood in 1941, the invention of the Moscow Mule is believed to have been concocted to sell more vodka at the time. The drink was a hit and quickly spread around town. Within a few years it was popular throughout the southwest and it is now recognized for starting the vodka craze of the 1950s. Sometimes served in a copper mug, the typical recipe for the drink is as follows:
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  One of the easiest and most rewarding techniques to personalize your liquor cabinet is to do an infusion. Unless you have been living in a dry county for the past 15 years or you just don’t get out much, you have probably seen the multitude of flavored spirits grow to a bewildering selection. Specifically, many vodka distillers have used flavors to diversify their product offerings and to dominate shelf space. However, some of the best infusions are those you make yourself.
Vodka as a starting point
Vodka, by definition, is a neutral spirit. That means it is supposed to be flavorless. Some folks argue that all vodka taste the same while others maintain that differences—sometimes dramatic—can contribute flavor characteristics and affect smoothness. In any case, vodka makes a great starting point for customization because it will remain neutral, allowing your fruit, spices or whatever you are using to be the dominant flavor. Certainly, you could choose to infuse gin, rum, and even tequila, but each spirit may have it’s own flavors that will come along for the ride! Choose a good-quality vodka over bottom shelf varieties. There’s no need to buy the most expensive brand (unless you really want to) since the goal is to add flavor. I find that I get great results using large bottles of Svedka from the big warehouse stores.
What to infuse
An easy starting point is to look at what the big distillers are making and try to create your own version. For example, why not try oranges? Lemons and limes? Vanilla? Coffee? Once you start infusing, it’s easy to let the situation get out of hand. Just take a stroll through the produce section of any grocery store and you will find some easy options, and before long you will be leaping wild-eyed through the spice aisles and bulk food section, hungry for your next experiment.
Say you want to do a simple orange infusion. You might be wondering how to prepare the fruit, or what works best. If you can get organic ingredients you will probably have better results. Non-organic fruit—especially citrus—is often coated with
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