My New Kitchen Project: Beet and Dill Infused Vodka

My first experience with hard alcohol was a shot of blue-raspberry vodka. This cloyingly sweet flavor hid the harsh taste of bad alcohol, which allowed me to take a sip or two of the shot. Let’s just say that since my drinking debut, vodka and I haven’t always been BFF. That is, until I discovered infused vodka.

Infused vodka, of course, is a completely different beast, and it’s ridiculously easy to make. I’ve recently been seeing infused vodkas that go beyond fruit infusions to stranger, even more wonderful variations, including a beautiful beet number. Obviously I needed to try this out in my kitchen.

All you really need to make infused vodka is some mid-priced vodka (nothing fancy), whatever you want to infuse it with, a sealable jar, and a place to put it out of the sun. I roughly followed Emma’s directions for making fruit-flavored vodka to make my concoction.

The dill vodka was relatively straightforward – I washed the herbs, placed a handful in a Mason jar, and then covered the sprigs with vodka. For the beet infusion, I peeled a raw beet, cubed it, and put it in a Mason jar and filled it with vodka. I’m curious to know if it would be better to roast the beet before adding it to the vodka, and whether I should grate it instead of cubing it. I put both Mason jars in the fridge, but you really just need to put them in a dark, cool place.

It’s only been a couple days since I started this process, but after testing both of them last night it shouldn’t be much longer. I’m looking forward to trying some kind of Scandinavian variation on a classic Bloody Mary – will report back when I do.

Have you ever infused vodka? What’s your favorite combination? Let me know in the comments.