A few years ago I discovered, to my horror, that my favorite pepper vodka (Pertsovka, made by Stolichnaya) was no longer available. I decided to take matters into my own hands and try making my own infusions. I experimented with various flavors of peppercorns and chiles, and got some really nice stuff.
Then I found a nice honey-pepper vodka (Nemiroff, from the Ukraine) at the Russian deli I frequent. Being naturally lazy, I let my infusion experiments slide and drank Nemiroff instead.
Recently, I started playing around with it again, and made a lovely pink peppercorn-lemon vodka. It’s extremely easy: in about a fifth of vodka, use 20-30 pink peppercorns and maybe 1/2 tsp of lemon zest (more if you want a more lemony vodka…but you knew that, didn’t you?). Let it steep for a couple of weeks, strain out the peppercorns and lemon zest, and there it is.
This makes a really nice V&V1; just use more vermouth than you would with non-flavored vodka, and garnish with a twist.
It’s also really good with lemonade–which obviously has to be made from fresh lemon juice. My recipe, adapted from the old Joy of Cooking:
1 quart water
3/4 cup sugar
3 oz. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. lemon zest
1/2 tsp. salt
Heat water, sugar, and lemon zest until sugar is dissolved. Add lemon juice. Strain and cool.
Enjoy!
1Vermouth & vodka
