Trust Us, Infusing Whisky Is Delicious

There’s a phase college students go through where they decide cheap, clear liquor needs an upgrade. But what, really, can an aspiring dorm-room mixologist do with a non-discerning palate, limited funds, and not enough time? Ah yes. Infuse. Just throw Skittles or frozen blueberries or any other easily accessible sweet accoutrement into the plastic bottle and wait. The resulting concoction is probably awful. It will be consumed anyway.

- Aaron Goldfarb

Don’t be ashamed if you went through that phase. You may now have disposable income to buy fancier bottles, but that does not mean you should quash that adventurous spirit – you know, the same one that drove you to throw Pop Rocks into Smirnoff. Harness that desire to meddle with your liquor cabinet and you can create some truly wild and delicious drinks. With the proper guidance, of course.

The best way to start your adult infusing journey is with whisky, a complex and resilient spirit that pairs so well with equally bold, complex flavours such as, say, meat. But don’t just drop some ground beef into a bottle of Jim Beam and call it a day. To infuse whisky with more ambitious foodstuff, you’re going to need to learn a tricky tactic called ‘fat washing’ – first detailed in a 2007 Food & Wine article by top-notch booze writer Nick Fauchald.

Fat won’t dissolve in most liquids, but it will dissolve in alcohol. Freezing that mixture until the fat resolidifies, then straining it off, completes the process. This is the only way to infuse a spirit with the flavours of, say, brown butter or hazelnuts or, yes, meat, without leaving any chunkiness or greasiness behind.

I recommend using a full bottle for any infusion. You don’t want to make too small a batch. You also lose a bit in the process, so I wouldn’t necessarily infuse a really pricey whisky. Look for R200 to R300 spirits. Or buy a bottle of the really cheap stuff to practise with – the higher-proof, the better.