Making Bacon Flavored Vodka

[rooftop1000]

Bakon Vodka...recipes included

http://www.bakonvodka.com/the_origin

tracey

[teapot]

Hi there,

In preparation for a brunch party next week, I made my own bacon. I removed the rinds after smoking and am thinking of infusing vodka with some of it (we'll be having bloody marys). I'm thinking the rinds would be better than the bacon itself because it has the flavor without the fat (fat has it's place but not, I think, in vodka).

My question is, would there be any benefit to cooking the rinds before infusing the vodka with them (as noted, they've been cured and smoked)?

[FrogPrincesse]

Most of the flavor of the bacon comes from the fat so I would considering fat washing - render the fat from the bacon or the rind, mix it with your base alcohol (bourbon, vodka, whatever), place the mixture in the freezer to separate the vodka from the fat, fine filter as necessary.

[teapot]

Thanks for pointing out the fat washing technique - I'd not seen that. Freezing the alcohol to remove the fat is a great idea.

All the discussions I've seen talk about using bacon - not the rinds. Frankly, I hate the idea of cooking up a pound of bacon only to have it serve as a flavoring agent. Using the smoky rinds seems a great use of an underused item.

Anyway, I ended up frying up the rinds too bring out the flavor and adding them, and the rendered fat, to some vodka.

[teapot]

I am happy to report that the rind delivered great flavor to the vodka. While I'm not going to be drinking bacon martinis anytime soon, the bacon vodka bloody mary was superb!