Hi, it’s Jenn, Dave’s wife and sometimes creative director with another foodie project! I’m not sure about the term “foodie”, to be honest, but I am all in favour of infusion, which is what I’ve been up to lately.
It all started when I stumbled on instructions for homemade vanilla extract. I picked up some gourmet-grade Madagascar Bourbon vanilla beans from Duchess Provisions (and some delicious baked goods next door) and a bottle of vodka. The process itself is simple: get all the good stuff out with lots of surface area and let the alcohol extract the delicious flavour compounds.
I started the first bottle on February 8, and I ordered some Indian extract-grade vanilla beans (Vanilla Review explains the two types), which I started steeping on March 15. The bottle sits in the dark and gets a good shake every day for the first month, after which it can sit with the occasional shake. After another few months the bean bits will be filtered out.
We dug into the Madagascar vanilla last week and this stuff is awesome! Extract-grade is, as you might expect from the name, better for extracts, so the Indian vanilla should be even better. Things taste that much better when you made them yourself, too…
The next product involved a trip to my parents’, where my mother gave me some beautiful mangoes. Alas, Tommy Atkins mangoes are notoriously stringy, but they’ll make a great mango tequila!
The same concept applies for mango tequila, although I won’t be infusing in the original bottle due to the size of the mango pieces. Starting with concentrated alcohol means undesirable pathogens will be killed off, so I can skip sanitizing my implements.
The skins are peeled with a paring knife…
…the flesh is cut from the pits, sliced, and tossed in the jar.
In goes the tequila!
It, too, sits in the cupboard with regular agitation.
The tequila should only need a month before it can be strained and bottled. It’ll be fantastic on a hot summer day!