Good evening martini lovers. Shaker One had just enough of the Earl Grey Tea infused vodka left over from the last post to make one more teani. I had the idea to add pomme juice to it….sort of fruit it up a bit. I also decided to forgo the egg white for this one.
Upon pouring this out of the shaker, I noticed a really deep tea color. The pomme juice barely made it’s presence known. After a taste, I understood why. There is a distinct bitterness to the vodka now which was definitely not there when it was freshly infused. Although I filtered the tea leaves out through both a fine mesh filter and a coffee filter (and no sediment was left whatsoever) the tea seems to have continued to steep. It’s less than a week since we made that infusion and the vodka is just about too bitter to drink. I tried to add sweetness with some additional simple syrup, but it’s not an issue of lack of sweetness. The result isn’t terrible (and I do like bitter/strong flavors), but I would not repeat this.
So note to self: When infusing vodka with tea for Teanis, only make as much as you plan on using that day/night. This infusion, unlike many other infusions, does not improve with age. A very good thing to know actually, as Shaker 2 and I have designs on a few more teanis and I would have hated to waste a good bottle of vodka.
There will be more Teanis in our shaking future, but we shall know to freshly infuse the vodka in small batches.
Experimentation is good. Without small failures great successes would not be possible.
Shaker One out.
