Spirit Base for Infusions, Cordials, and Bitters

[mbrowley]

"To render this class of liquids profitable to

the manufacturer, the ingredients made use of should

be few and simple, and of an insignificant value."

Pierre Lacour in regard to bitters

"The Manufacture of Liquors, Wines, and Cordials without the Aid of Distillation" (1868)

The infused vodka and bitters threads got me thinking about the infusions, concoctions, decoctions, and macerations that make my liquor closet sometimes look like the herpetology storeroom in a natural history museum. At the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia, we actually used grain alcohol to boost the ethanol content of 19th-century specimens, so the analogy isn't that far off.

I've had plenty of cordials, brandy-based "wines," and tonics that were based on various home-distilled spirits such as corn whiskey, rye, grappa, and white brandy. It's a hit-and-miss affair. Some approached the velvety sublime. Others were just dag-nasty.

But a sizable group of those home distillers shoots for as pure a spirit as they can make. None is equipped to make 100% ethanol, but in a home setting with a reflux still, they can sometimes hit over 180 proof, stripping out a lot of congeners and "impurities" (the bane of the new home vodka set). There's a tendency for these guys to flavor the resulting spirit with oils and essences rather than raw ingredients, but I picked up a few of their tricks for making a near flavorless base that allows those raw ingredients to stand on their own.

Among the most useful tricks is to filter the base spirit once cut back to 40-50% abv. There are plenty of ways to filter, polish or "scrub" spirits of impurities for the home- or bar-based experimenter, but they all include some form of activated carbon. Lots of jerry rigging going on with funnels and pipes, Britta filters (don't try it), but the idea is to make (or purchase) low-cost vodka, filter it, and then use that as a base spirit.

One commercial product (Gray Kangaroo) that purports to "take the stink out of your drink" actually does a good job of scrubbing the nastiness from cheap-ish vodka to make a clean base spirit for cocktails or infusions. Nick and Coach, the Philadelphia branch office of Modern Drunkard Magazine, invented the thing and - full disclosure - I've got nothing to do with the product and no money ever changed hands between us. I just like it as a useful tool.

The downside is that it's utterly no good for brandies, whiskeys, etc. where you actually WANT those impurities (e.g. "flavor" and "character") to stand out - had to dissuade my mom this weekend from running her bourbon through the one I gave her - but I picked up one of their filters a while back and am pretty impressed with its ability to polish well vodka into something smooth enough to use as a nearly flavorless base for all those cordials, bitters, etc.

So, for a cheap base that wouldn't compete with the flavors you're trying to develop, some kind of carbon filter for vodka is a good move. Of course, I also use rye, bourbon, and occasionally gin , none of which should ever be anywhere near a Gray Kangaroo. What other spirits do you find works well for your flavored potables?

~ Matt

[bostonapothecary]

what are your cost per liter requirements?

[mbrowley]

what are your cost per liter requirements?

←

HA! I don't have requirements, so much as I was pleased that for about $8/liter, I could get a good base spirit by filtering vodka I would not otherwise serve a guest. From that I can make extracts, tinctures, cordials, etc.

The largest amount of base I ever put to use at home was one year when I went just a hair overboard and made about five gallons of a cranberry cordial. In such quantity, the parity between $8/liter and $20 made a big difference. Not that I wouldn't and haven't experimented with pricier stock, but I just make much less of whatever I'm trying to do. Hmmm...maybe not such a bad idea.

The cordial was very tasty, but lasted a while. Ended up giving the last of it (in a 1.8 liter sake bottle) to a friend with several boxes of mixed bottles. We had spent several months trying to drink down the liquor cabinet* and were left with an overabundance of alcohol. This was a take-all-or-nothing deal that included all my homebrew gear as well (Zeke, you still owe me a Spencer at the Southwark).

* cabinet is a misnomer. It was a cabinet, a copper-topped dry sink, two more cabinets, a basement locker, a bar cart, the underside of a stainless work table, and the backsplash of two kitchen counters. Drinking down the cabinet before our cross-country move was a herculean task, but by the grace of a brace of old cocktail books and my food service friends, we managed to drink all but three cases.

[eje]

I'm curious where anyone interested in this topic comes down on the subject of the proof of the alcohol used to make liqueurs, bitters, and infusions.

A lot of folks maintain that higher proof alcohol is necessary to get the appropriate flavor extraction.

I can't say I've found this to be the case.

At least when it comes down to a cost benefit analysis, I don't see the advantage of using 100 proof versus 80 proof vodka.

I guess it doesn't help that I don't really like the "flavor" of most of the 100 proof vodkas I've tried. To my taste/smell, they create a flaw in the finished product.

Everclear, to me, is even more noticeable.

Now, if something like the Gray Kangaroo could remove some of those "flavors" from the vodka or everclear, maybe, they might be worth using.

[Dave the Cook]

I'm curious where anyone interested in this topic comes down on the subject of the proof of the alcohol used to make liqueurs, bitters, and infusions.

A lot of folks maintain that higher proof alcohol is necessary to get the appropriate flavor extraction.

I can't say I've found this to be the case.

←

At the Tales of the Cocktail seminar on aromatics in cocktails, Audrey Saunders was asked this question. Her answer was 80 proof (I think she said she uses Stoli). Her reasoning was that a higher proof spirit simply resulted in a harsher, hotter product, and that all the flavor (or aroma) you want can be infused into an 80 proof base.

[mbrowley]

At least when it comes down to a cost benefit analysis, I don't see the advantage of using 100 proof versus 80 proof vodka.

Now, if something like the Gray Kangaroo could remove some of those "flavors" from the vodka or everclear, maybe, they might be worth using.

←

I'm with you on the 80-proof vodka, Erik. It's the most widely available product, for one, which makes recipes calibrated to 40 abv more easy to replicate for others who might not have access to 100 proof vodka or grain alcohol such as Everclear, Clear Springs, Diesel, or Graves (by the way, forget the sheer audacity of the name, I love the triple-x on the Graves-in-a-bottle).

Ability for others to replicate recipes notwithstanding, I don't like the nose-crinkling taste of grain alcohol. It's too hot, too much like solvent, and carries the stink of it is something I associate with poorly-distilled rotgut moonshine. Odd, I know. You'd think something so nearly pure would have a neutral taste. Not so. Though it's been used to good effect (Gary Regan's limoncello, for instance, bravely calls for a liter of the stuff), for day to day beverage purposes, one can do better. And vodka seems to answer nicely.

Some of the home distillers I know, though, prefer a higher-proof ETOH for their tinctures and bitters, claiming they get better extraction of secondary alkaloids, essential oils, and the like. I'm not a chemist, so I can't say. Anyone out there able to address this from a chemical standpoint?

I tried filtering grain through the Gray Kangaroo; still didn't take the stink out of that particular drink. For 80-100 proof vodka, the thing is a category-killer. With other potables, not so much.

[edited for typos]

Edited July 23, 2007 by mbrowley (log)

[bostonapothecary]

everything that you infuse and want to extract flavor from works differently.... the higher the proof that you use the better your chances on denaturing things.... somethings are resilient and somethings cook....

jasmine is something very delicate and its oil can't be extracted with alcohol because it denatures..... (as do your own cells which is why medical rubbing alcohol is slightly cut to under the point to which it happens..)

anyhow lots of particles are also fat soluble so you use a technique called "enfleurage" where you dissolve the matter in a neutral fat to extract it and then seperate it from the fat...

chefs use enfleurage all the time when they make basil butter or something like that... the butter just sucks the flavor molecultes out of the basil. you can clean out the basil particles and you'll have an intense full flavored butter....

what infusion is all about is that in flavor, to get the hole picture of what your trying to isolate you need alcohol and water to dissolve as much as possible.... thats why a pot of tea is boring and cocktails are fun.... they only get half the flavor....

[slkinsey]

Different flavor (and color, etc.) compounds are soluble in alcohol and some are soluble in water -- or some are more soluble in alcohol or water than the other. As bostonapothecary points out, some compounds are more soluble in fat than anything else. But that doesn't really help us, since we are in general not using fat in our cocktails (except for things like cream).

So, for an infusion there's not much difference in a 100 proof spirit's and an 80 proof spirit's ability to extract flavors. Both proofs have plenty of alcohol and plenty of water to extract whatever is extractable. And, if you're making an infusion for drinking purposes rather than a bitters or tincture there's no reason to go to a higher proof, and some good reasons (primarily harshness) not to. On the other hand, this consideration is mostly important with respect to making infusions into neutral spirits (aka vodka). Plenty of people use 100 proof Rittenhouse as the spirit base for bitters, and it works just fine.

There is also another possible infusion choice: Go with a 100% water solvent and infuse into simple syrup, or go with a 95.5% alcohol solvent and infuse into neutral spirits. These two solvents will extract different compounds. I'm not particularly find of 95.5% alcohol infusions, because of the aforementioned element of "harshness." But a simple syrup (water) infusion can produce a nicely mild result.

Heat also makes a difference. Some bitters recipes, for example, call for infusing herbs and spices into alcohol (actually alcohol + water) for a period of time, then straining the solids, simmering them in water and combining that liquid with the cold infusion. In this case, it might make some sense to infuse into a higher-proof spirit so that the final proof of the bitters is sufficiently high to prevent spoilage.