Raspberry Infused Vodka

Mom's Recipe:

1. Fill a quart canning jar with raspberries
2. Pour a cup of sugar over the raspberries
3. Fill the jar with vodka (about half of a 750ml bottle)
4. Close jar with a tight-fitting, two-piece canning lid and ring
5. Let the jar sit upright for one week
6. Turn the jar upside down amd let sit for one week.
7. Turn jar weekly until vodka has infused for six weeks
8. Strain through a colander or similar strainer

NOTES: Mom says if you press the raspberries when you're draining them, the infused vodka will be cloudy. When left to infuse more than six weeks, the finished product tastes seedy.

My parents have been making raspberry vodka for years. They grow a lot of raspberries and are always looking for new ways to use them, especially at the end of the season when they are most bountiful. Honestly, my parents are not realy drinking people, but this recipe quickly became a family staple.

Early in the fall my parents' kitchen is dotted with quart jars infusing. Dad says once he came home for lunch and was halfway through a bowl of raspberries before he realized that they were infusing. Evidently it was a long afternoon.

Each year's new batch is generally first served at Thanksgiving. About ten years ago, Berger came to visit for Thanksgiving. He was really quite enamored with the stuff and my dad shared the family secret: "Very cheap vodka. VERY expensive raspberries".

This stuff is quite good to sip on its own, though some will certainly find it too sweet and syrupy. I suspect you could use half the sugar and shorten the infusing time and would still have a rich-tasting infusion. I sometimes thin it out with more vodka.

My dad makes a cocktail with orange juice - let's call it a Raspberry Sunrise.

I like to mix it with hard cider and call that a Pink Hoo-ha.