Strawberry Vodka

I love summer, the warmth, the green, the sun, strawberries and cream...  I love this recipe because it lets you remember those heady summer evenings in the chill of winter when the snow is on the ground.

You can choose when you want to make this vodka, either at the beginning of summer when the 'pick your own' farms open up or at the end of summer when the fruit is cheap in the shops...

Ingredients:
1ltr Vodka (Iuse the cheapest as you are flavoring it anyway)
800g fruit
280g sugar (trial and error to see what you like)

Utensils:
DemiJohn - you can pick these up from boot sale, neighbours etc. - or use another big jar thing...
Bung
Funnel
Kitchen knife
Coffee filters

The modus operandi is sooo easy, just cut the fruit up into small enough pieces to fit into your container, pour in the sugar and pour in the vodka, fit the bung and give it a shake to make sure all the sugar is dissolved.
For the first two to three weeks give it a shake, then you can reduce the agitation to one a week.  I tend to leave it in the DemiJohn for as long as possible, but 3 months is a good start.

When you are ready to bottle it off, I re-use the bottles the vodka came in, sticking a funnel in the top, then a filter in the funnel, just pour the liquid through.  You will go through a lot of filters, as the strawberries tend to mush up a lot.

I also keep an eye out for decanters when going round junk shops etc. as a decanter of home made strawberry vodka makes a very pretty Christmas present.

You can double up the ingredients if you have more fruit (I usually knock up batches of 2.25 lts i.e. 3 bottles of vodka).
You can also use different fruits and spirits, I also make Blackberry Brandy and Sloe Gin, hopefully I will also try raspberry vodka this year.