Chocolate Vodka

750 ml vodka

12 ounces chocolate syrup

This is not an infusion, but rather a solution. You just mix the vodka with some chocolate syrup. As such, it's ready to use as soon as it's mixed together.

It's everything you expect: sweet, chocolaty, syrupy. I'd like to figure out how to separate out some of the solids and leave it clearer and cleaner in the mouth.

I've heard of others who infuse vodka with pieces of chocolate. I am assuming that the pieces of chocolate eventually dissolve into the vodka and so what results is still a solution. I might try that to see if it yields a less muddy result.

I am also curious to figure out how to filter this stuff. It pours right through a wire strainer, but immediately stops when I try to pour it through a coffee filter or cloth. Suggestions are appreciated.

Bacon-Chocolate Shot

1 part bacon infused vodka

1 part chocolate vodka

salted rim (optional)

Pour the bacon vodka first. When you pour in the cocolate vodka, it will sink below the bacon. This is not a drink for sipping - you really need to mix the two flavors to make this work.

A couple of years ago my ex-brother-in-law gave me a bacon-chocolate bar for Christmas. It was good, but mostly my reaction was that it could have been a lot better. Then, last summer, state fairs across the country introduced America to thick-cut, chocolate-dipped bacon chunks. As a Minnesotan of some girth, that just felt self-destructive. Which of course did not stop me.

The bacon-chocolate shot is a drink that is greater than the sum of its parts. The bacon infused vodka on its own is somewhat greasy and salty and has little to mask the vodka burn in the back of your throat. And the chocolate vodka alone is sort of muddy and syrupy (I could probably improve on that). But when combined these two are like some sort of superhero team in which each member's skills cannot be fully appreciated without the other.