[CH] Flavored vodkas

Alex Silbajoris (72163.1353@compuserve.com)
Wed, 22 Jul 1998 05:21:37 -0400 

Kids,

I was late sending this, and in the meantime Luke answered a question I
had.

The Old Bear clawed:

>I find the most interesting to be Zubrovka, which one used 
>to be able to buy as an import from Poland years ago, but 
>appears to be unavailable now. 

The stuff is tasty.  My Lithuanian family has prepared this many times, but
it is hard to get the grass.  I'd heard the Department of Agriculture was
keeping it out of the country for some reason, but that was a while ago so
maybe things have changed.  

(Luke? With your Pilsudski background, do you know anything about this
stuff in Oz?)

We also use mountain ash berries - the ones in bright orange clusters. 
Take a large glass bottle (like a 64-ounce juice bottle), and fill it
halfway with washed and stemmed berries.  Cover with white sugar, maybe
about two cups or so.  Place cheesecloth over the top of the bottle, and
leave it.  Some people put it in a sunny spot to speed things along. 
Gradually (several days or weeks) The juice from the shriveling berries
combines with the sugar to create a thick syrup.  This stuff can keep for
years.

Use the syrup to flavor plain vodka.  It doesn't take much; my favorite
proportion is to fill the air space of a new bottle with syrup - maybe
about 2 - 3 shots of syrup per bottle.  Keep it in the freezer and drink it
chilled.

I suppose the syrup could be used for non-alcoholic applications, maybe a
mysterious flavoring for a cake frosting or something.  The berry flavor is
not like anything else; it's almost like a flavor of flowers.

I can't correctly type the name of the stuff without the proper character
set, but the phonetic representation of the name would be something like
shir-MOOKSH-nis.

If you try this, make sure the berries are ripe, and be sure that the tree
hasn't been treated with any systemic lawn chemicals.

I haven't tried all the flavored vodkas yet (the selection grows
constantly) but for some reason I can't gag down a pepper-flavored vodka. 
My throat just says no.

     Alex Silbajoris  72163.1353@compuserve.com
     Uz Sveikata! (to your health)