Horseradish vodka

[BernardSmith]

Here's a nice idea for a different use of some horseradish you have grown.Take a piece around 6 cm and wash and scrub this (no need to peel it) and then cut the horseradish into half cm roundels. Steep the roundels in say, 500 ml of vodka for 3 days and then strain. Horseradish vodka is an Eastern European folk drink. You can add a little honey (or sugar) if you prefer to make this into a liqueur but chilled (in your freezer or stored outdoors if the winter is like here (upstate NY) VERY cold, this is a wonderful drink. If you allow this to age for a few months the drink becomes even more smooth. If you find that after even 3 days this is too "hot" you can add more vodka to dilute the heat or next time you might allow the root to steep for 2 days...

[Green Aura]

Sounds interesting. I've made chilli vodka but it's not my favoutite tipple I have to say.

[elfcurry]

dilute with vodka !?

[BernardSmith]

Two quick and dirty thoughts.
1. You don't need to harvest the whole root. Dig it up and cut the few cm from the root and then replace the root. It will continue to thrive.

2. I just made another small batch of this horseradish vodka and strained the vodka after 24 hours. Much less intense than the recipe I provided in the winter and - in my opinion - a much smoother and far more drinkable drink. My point: you want to experiment with the amount of time you allow the vodka to extract the oils and flavors from the horseradish.

[Brewtrog]

Never done it with horseraddish, but I've made both chilli vodka and black pepper vodka. As with GA, Chilli vodka isn't my favourite tipple (can be useful to add a dash to other flavoured vodkas for an interesting twist though). The black pepper vodka I made was far too strong, but you could tell it had potential if left for a much shorter time (can't remember how long I left it for, it's years ago now).
A good way to make it go further is use overproof vodka and dilute with a flavourless wine to a reasonable abv

[BernardSmith]

Less expensive to dilute an overproofed vodka with water, or at least that's what I do when I make liqueurs. I use simple syrup to sweeten the flavored vodka. That's what I did for a violet liqueur I just bottled a few minutes ago. For something like horseradish vodka I used vodka at about 90 proof

[Brewtrog]

When I said overproof I was meaning something like spirytus at 90-95%abv, and using a flavourless wine of 10-15%abv to bring it down to 40% (cant find a calculator that will do it, and don't have the time to remember my pearson square). It gives a lot more alcohol that just using water to dilute.
It also gives you the choice of extracting at high abv and diluting the flavoured spirit, or diluting first. The former is good for aniseed based spirits as it can extract the anethole better, allowing for a drink that louches without having to distill illegally. (admittedly just watering down would allow for this too, but more booze is always a good thing )

[BernardSmith]

I certainly get your point but if you are trying to get a 90% abv spirit (180 proof) down to say 45% ABV then adding a "flavorless wine" at any %abv will take far more liquid to dilute the spirit by half than simply adding "flavorless" water. True , the total volume you then have will be less if you use water, but I don't know any wine that is "flavorless" and if you have chosen to use "vodka" as your base, then presumably you have done so because all you want is the supposed flavorless quality of vodka (as opposed to brandy or rum or scotch) But that said, if you find that using a wine to cut the proof of the spirit works for you , you have no argument from me. I just find that good quality spring water serves my purposes