UKH

Any tried simply adding say blackberry juice to vodka?  I’ve tonnes of fruit and spirit so up for an experiment.  
I’m also going to have a bash at Creme du Mure: mashed up blackberries and some sugar, add red wine, strain, add spirit.  Never heard of it until now. 

Yes. It works. Can be worth running it through a coffee filter.

Isn't that just alcopops? 

I read about someone who experimented with steeping fruit in vodka: batch one was one month, batch two was six months. Batch one had a fruitier, fresher taste. Batch two tasted richer, more mature and less fruity. So I’m going for an even lass mature and hopefully fruitier version. 

Last year I did a ‘two week soak’ of blackberries, elderberries, haws, quince and rose hips. Minima sugar. It was superb. Only kept a small bottle - rest was presents. 

Method A) pressurised in a container using nitrous oxide or CO² at about 7bar (how the business up the road from me does it). B) put the alcohol and fruit in a plastic bag and vacuum it which destroys the cell walls as  they contain air in the fruit then let air back in, the alcohol fills the cells.

Never knew that. Ta. 
Thinking about it, I have a beer keg that can stand some pressure, not sure how much though. Possible experiment when I get a new CO2 bottle. 

For experimenting he uses a whipped-cream dispenser, for production they are big stainless things, maybe 50l or so. I did some welding on one once. Beer barrels should be pressure stamped! I guess less pressure just means slower.

My barrel is for homebrew. Just checked - probably not capable of enough pressure (15 psi is the safe pressure).  

Anyway, just chucked 2 kg of blackberries into 3 bottles of a fruity wine I made in 2017 (15%, blackberry, wild plums and some sloes).  
Also thawing 3 pounds damsons to add to a demijohn and will top up with my spirit.

And will be oaking 3 gallons of hedgerow wine later. (Xmas preparation). 

From what I remember the process is only a couple of hours (it was only a vague conversation as it's not what I drink). The benefit is you get a lighter fruitier taste, the traditional way it's kinda mustier if that's the word. They do mostly Williams pears and damsons, traditional Bavarian stuff!

My daughter gave us (husband, son and me) some fruit cordial the other day, which my son described as "worse than ribena". This evening he and I had a pleasantly messy session making sloe gin (sloes frozen when we picked them a coupke if weeks ago). We ended up with some leftover gin that, er, needed using up. With the fruit cordial, water and ice it is delicious.

Freezing the fruit will rupture the cell walls. The smaller the size the greater the surface area to volume ratio so anything to break up the fruit helps. As will regular agitation. 

My experience is mostly with making sloe gin so no option for just adding fruit juice but I did notice with more time more almond flavours from the seed came through. 

I’ve saved the stones from sloes and damsons to make heat bags. Pop in the microwave, slap onto your sore neck and you get a lovely whiff of marzipan. The aroma cures you better than the heat. 

Your boozy drink sounds good. 
Just bottled this lot (photo):  mainly blackberry/elder/damson but with six bottles of rose hip. Rose Hip wine is amazing. Got a Demijohn of damson vodka type spirit, demijohn of blackberry and elderberry vodka, a bowl of mashed blackberries with wine and a bowl of softening blackberries and elderberries which I’ve forgotten what I’m doing with them (due to essential quality assurance work).  Oh, and I’ve added 4 bottles of wine to the bullace  left over from bullace vodka. So that’s pressies for  Xmas 2023 sorted!

Back in my younger days, I was once violently unwell some hours after consuming 6 pints of snake bite and black.  To this date, it’s the only time that’s happened to me.

The reasons didn’t become apparent until some days later, when I had an epiphany.

I’d drunk a whole pint of ribena cordial in the space of 3 hours.  That would mess anyone up, even if it was diluted with beer and cider.

What was I thinking?

One year I tested individual pricking vs freezing vs regular agitation.  All tasted similar, regular agitation was by far the easiest:

Isn’t that the amygdalin from the kernel, just waiting to be metabolised into cyanide?

I have two suggestions.

One from a Polish girlfriend’s father who insisted that his garlic-steeped vodka would keep him alive. He died.

Second from a local publican who came back from a holiday in China, and offered us a free drink from a bottle he had brought back. We eagerly consumed the free drink, then he removed his hand from the bottle and revealed the lizard that was pickled inside it. We lived, but I don’t particularly recommend this recipe, unless you are partial to lizard.

ff

I guess that's not as bad as the pickled toe cocktail...

Think our freezer is playing up a bit, seems to happen in freezing weather???

Found the bag of sloes, must do some thing am too tight to buy any more alcoholic stuff.

There's a fifth of a big bottle of captain Morgan spiced rum here that's been open for years, shall I chuck them in? Don't much care about the result, never do owt with the rum and it's too harsh for me on it's own. 

Based on info gleaned from that bastion of home brew knowledge, Mumsnet, we've used the dishwasher to infuse spirits. We made a toffee vodka and an infused gin. Stick the ingredients into a bottle of spirits. Tape up the lid. Put it on the top shelf of the dish washer and hit go.

Probably not enough rum. Most recipes have you having filling a container with fruit, adding sugar, filling to the top with booze. 

I just knew it was going to be a bad idea to google that