Plum Pudding Vodka - AKA Christmas Vodka

 As (cooking) YouTuber Barry Lewis would say: "This is stonking" - which is a good thing!  I've been wanting to make this for a while, and finally it's nearly Christmas so I have.  It is much better than I expected, to be honest.  Sweet, fruity, spicy and so warming.  And you end up with heaps of vodka-infused fruit that goes beautifully on top of vanilla ice cream!

This recipe is from a Delicious magazine, though I've seen similar on the Net, with varying amounts of the dried fruit etc.  I only changed one thing - I used craisins rather than raisins as I'm not a raisin fan.  Too squishy for me!  I just can't do 'squishy'.  I can only eat blueberries or grapes at peak level of firmness.  Once they're past a certain degree of squish, nope no can do.  Uuuurrrggghhh, that texture thing makes me shudder.  Am I weird? :=)

Merry merry festive season, everyone!!

Merry Christmas pudding to you!

Makes about 700 mL:

ingredients:

1 x 700 mL bottle of vodka

250g./9 oz dark brown sugar

250g./9 oz sultanas

150g./5.3 oz craisins or raisins

100g./3.5 oz mixed peel

1 orange - zest/rind and juice thereof

1 tsp almond essence

6 cloves (yes 6!!)

2 cinnamon sticks

2 vanilla beans, split and seeds scraped out - see Notes

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1 tsp mixed spice

Method:

Place everything except the vodka into a big jar or bowl - I used a tall, glass jar which holds about 1.5 Litres

Then pour the vodka over the lot, and give it a massive stir!  Make sure you get down to the bottom, so as to stir in all the sugar

Put it in a cool, dark place with a tea-towel over it; stir it once a day for a week

Strain it through a very fine sieve or a sieve with a piece of muslin lining it - into a large bowl or jug of course

Let it sit for an hour or two, giving it the occasional squeeze down - I got heaps of it off the bottom of the sieve!

Decant into bottles of your choosing - you can just pour it straight back into the vodka bottle or share some with friends via small bottles 

Serve on the rocks (can be kept in the fridge for up to 6 months)

None of the recipes I saw mentioned what to do with the plump, alcohol-ridden fruit that you now have left: "Buy some vanilla ice cream!", declaims Mr P.  And yes that's a darn good idea, Mr P.!

I put the fruit into jars with a bit of extra vodka, and whacked 'em into the fridge for later ice cream treats.  When I say later, I mean that night as Mr P. demanded we head to the grocery store and buy some ice cream tout de suite :=)

Notes:

I didn't bother doing much scraping of the vanilla beans to be honest!  I did scrape one a bit, then I just snipped up the other one into small pieces as it all ends up swilling around anyway in the jar

gather your ingredients

zest and juice that orange

split and scrape the vanilla beans

  

plonk everything into a large jar or bowl

looks a bit murky but turns out all right in the end :=)

stir once a day for a week

give it a good squish down

back into the vodka bottle

and you have jars of lovely plump fruit too

deliveries by Santa's Elves (me and Mr P.) to various local businesses

fruit on vanilla ice cream that night (I added some Flake bar)

Sherry M.