Pumpkin-Infused Vodka
— Speaking of infusions, I decided to do something a little more bearable for Halloween (possibly the only actively Halloween-related thing I’m doing this year, as I’m not having a Halloween Party this year, and I’ve given up on all of the super-gimmicky Pumpkin beers this season). I took a look at a few recipes online but nothing really suited exactly what I was looking for (mostly due to limitations of finding certain whole spices in our crappy grocery stores in the area) so I kinda just winged it. We’ll see how it turns out on Friday.
I couldn’t find cardamom seeds anywhere, so ground cardamom had to do. This shit was ridiculously expensive. Price Chopper wanted $14.99 a bottle which is really unacceptable. I grabbed this bottle at Fresh Market for 8 bucks.
I always have Madagascar vanilla beans in the pantry which normally are really expensive, but I buy them through Amazon by the half pound for substantially cheaper than locally. I had some cinnamon sticks leftover from 30 Days to Dogfish Head Night, but had to grab some whole cloves and the pie pumpkin from the store, too. I’m a bit of a mason jar hoarder, so I grabbed a large Atlas jar from the basement.
After gutting and cutting the outside of the pumpkin (let’s be real I had Elise do that) I cut the pumpkin meat in cubes, split two vanilla beans, grabbed a teaspoon of cardamom, about 25 cloves (Merc is going to give me shit about this), two cinnamon sticks and tossed them all in the Atlas jar. I then filled it up to the top with vodka, leaving enough space up top to give it a good shake every once in a while. I didn’t measure exactly, but I ended up using about 4.5-5 cups of vodka to fill the jar. Here’s it all mixed up:
Since using the ground cardamon instead of cardamom pods, I’m going to have to use a coffee filter like with the Bacon Habenero Vodka to get some of the clarity back. And if I had a little more time last night, I would have probably roasted the pumpkin meat first, and I’ll probably do that next time. We’re planning on making a couple of pumpkin vodka based drinks with this on Friday. More pics of that when it happens.
matthew 'fuj' scher 