Dry-Infusing

[Kohai]

I had an idea for a flavoring technique that, for lack of a better term, I've been referring to as "dry infusing". It's a bit half-baked, but I thought I'd throw it out and see if anyone came back with a good application for it.

The idea is this: Take a porous container like a plastic jug. Fill it with a strongly scented or flavored liquid - say, hot cinnamon tea, vinegar, liquid smoke, A1, soy sauce, gasoline (yuck), whatever. Rest it for several days so that the plastic takes on the scent - and maybe flavor? - of the liquid. Then empty the container and fill it with an alcohol.

The alcohol will take on flavor/scent characteristics of the liquid without actually coming into contact with the liquid. This could be good if you, say, don't want to lower the proof of the alcohol, or don't want to mix the liquid with the alcohol directly.

Problems with this technique:

1.) I'm not sure that plastic would absorb a very wide flavor/scent spectrum. It might just pick up certain notes, and therefore only impart a limited amount to the alcohol.

2.) I'm not sure I can think of a reason why this technique is better than just infusing, say, cinnamon sticks directly into alcohol. As I was writing this I realized that vinegar or soy sauce infusions might have their uses, but then again see 1).

Just thought I'd throw this one out there to see if it got anyone's imagination going.

[Paulo Freitas]

Another problem that comes to mind with this technic is that the plastic itself could impart some flavor to the final product

[Kohai]

That might be true. And yet... I'm not sure I've ever noticed that my orange juice/milk/soda ever "tasted like plastic" before. If I was pressed, I probably couldn't describe the flavor of plastic. Isn't it pretty neutral?

Still, I'm not sure there's a wide arena of applications for this idea. In any drink where you might want to infuse alcohol with, say, soy sauce, it would probably be more effective to just use a barspoon of soy sauce in the mix.

[Steamtrain]

I too have been working on some new techniques to impart flavors in to spirits. Some friends and I have been pulling flavored air through various liquids with decent results in diluted gin and vodka. The liqueurs are generally too sugarey and burn too easily. Anything over 30% alcohol can get dangerous and ignite. Our best trials have been with regular red label smirnoff (80 proof) mixed with equal amounts of brita filtered tap water.

[Kohai]

Ignite? Can you be more specific about the methods you're employing here?

I have contemplated the purchase - strictly for cocktail purposes, mind you - of a six-foot bong, filling it with alcohol and rigging the top with a pump to draw, say, cedar smoke through it. It is conceivable that one could create a smoked bourbon or something along those lines. It's also conceivable that one would just end up with a huge, tragic bourbon bomb. Sounds like you've had some experiences along those lines?

Ultimately a better way would probably just be to load hotel pans filled with a shallow layer of liquid into a smoker, like Eben Freemen did at Tailor with his smoked cola.

<Edited for typo.>

Edited November 10, 2009 by Kohai (log)