Home made flavoured vodkas, spiced cider etc

[BoysBoysBoysAndMe]

Was thinking of making some cherry vodka, spiced cider, maybe some Irish cream for Christmas. And if they're any good maybe give them as gifts?

But don't want to spend loads of money on bottles and ingredients for them to be rubbish.

Anyone got any good recipes or tips for making such drinks?

On mob ar mo, will come back to this

Mulled cider is lovely bit not sure ai would make it for a present, would go more for flavoured salt, roasted garlic and anything vodka based.

I would like to know how to make a good flavoured vodak too

all here

I have orange, fig and cinnamon vodka currently stewing, along with a billion litres of blackberry vodka.

Tesco's sell White wine vinegar in 330ml bottles for about 40p so I have been decanting these and reusing the bottles for the vodka. This year it is going to work colleagues and teachers.

I use Aldi vodka which is 7.97.

That MN thread I linked to is fab, tried and tested.

My curl wurly vodka is fab
I bought little grolscsh type bottles last year from amazon and gave them as presents
So ...

Bottle of vodka with some taken out
Put about 5 curly wurlys in bottle
Put top on
Put in dishwasher hot wash twice
Shake it a lot
Done :)

I did Christmas pudding vodka last year which was a recipe a mnetter put up. It went down very well I have to say!

well done DCS, that was the thread I was going to link to

Over the last few years I've done raspberry vodka, christmas pudding vodka, sloe gin, hedgerow vodka (rosehip and hawthorn- bloody lovely and a fab coral pink) and sweet woodruff vodka which tastes like bison grass vodka. All went down very well.

oooh hedgerow - can you give more details

ditto sweet woodruff

I am contemplating bacon vodka for the younger elements of my wider faaaamily [ponders]

Spiced cider is lovely but doesn't keep, so make it for visitors on the day.

A really simple one

Cider
Allspice
star anise
brown sugar

boil up spices in a bit of water, simmer for a while, add cider and sugar and heat til piping hot, not boiling. add some chopped apple if you like.

I haven't given quantities as i just make it up as i go along, just use 'common sense quantities'.

oh, and you can put brandy in it if you like, I don't bother.

I have a hawthorn tree in my garden and it was only this year I realised I'd been wasting precious resources so definitely Hawthorn vodka for me. Last year I made xmas pud vodka and werthers toffee vodka, both gorgeous. For the werthers one, just smash up some werthers, add to the vodka and shake over a period of up to 2 weeks until they are dissolved. Fantastic straight from the freezer. (Best to make it in a bigger bottle or ahem drink some first to make up for the displacement by the werthers.)

raspberry vodka and christmas pudding vodka both went down well here last year.

got some sloe gin I made last year to give out this christmas, and making some rhubarb schnapps too.

Hedgerow vodka= pricked haws, pricked hips, caster sugar (I never measure, just keep adding more over the weeks to taste)
Sweet woodruff vodka= just vodka with a good bunch of sweet woodruff in it. No sugar, nothing else needed, and will pick up the taste in a few days (though still be quite harsh). The longer it's left the stronger and mellower the taste gets.

Mmm some fab ideas and recipes to get me started.

Thanks everyone.

Love the Christmas pud flavour idea and good point about the cider, so will do that just for visitors I think.