The rain is gone and Summer and the heat have descended on Tulsa. Luckily that means we get to roll out with some cooling summer infusions for you. In this weeks behind the scenes glimpse in our Inner Inner Circle post, we will show you these new infusions and how we made them. These jars are smaller than our normal infusion jars because we wanted to test them out and see how they taste and if they work well in different cocktails. They are now ready so come in and try them out and let us know which is your favorite... If you come up with a good cocktail recipe you may even get to name the drink!Vodka Infusions are very easy to do; It is simply judging the amount of what you want to infuse, time, and balancing flavors. If you are putting a stronger flavor in with a weaker flavor you should hold off on adding the stronger until the end. For instance if you want to do a spicy citrus infuse with oranges and lemons before adding the jalapeno pepper near the end of the infusion time. With our summer infusions there was a good balance of flavors and we tried putting it all in at once. Above in the picture we have starting on the left; Rosemary and Grapefruit, Lemon and Basil, Cherry and Vanilla Bean, Plum, and Kiwi Strawberry.Rosemary and GrapefruitWith the weather we wanted to include some tasty citrus and herbal infusions- something that tastes fresh from a garden. With the Rosemary and Grapefruit we have two refreshing but strong flavors. We only used a few sprigs of Rosemary and about 3 -4 Grapefruits as a balance as our lovely in-house Infusions Expert demonstrates...Lemon and BasilWe went with the same theme of fresh citrus and herbs with our Lemon and Basil infusion. We use Pinnacle vodka in all of our Inner Circle infusions as you can see in the video below.Cherry and Vanilla BeanNext up we have Cherry and Vanilla Bean. This ads something a little sweeter to our lineup. We are working on a light and sweet martini that would be a perfect dessert after grabbing some dinner at the new patio food truck Outer Circle. As you can see below we left the cherries intact but cut slits for the vodka to more easily have contact with the flavored inside. We also shake up our infusions every few days while they are infusions to insure that vodka and flavor mix well.PlumInstead of using a combination of flavors we decided to go with something we thought would be just plum delicious, GET IT, because this is an all Plum infusion. Most of our infusions take a week to infuse before they are ready and only get a stronger flavor with age. Stronger flavors like pepper or horseradish only take a few days. If you are infusing at home and don't go through a lot of vodka fast, we recommend taking out the fruit, or whatever you are infusing with, around 2 to 3 weeks for most infusions; and the remaining vodka will keep for a long time. For parties or anything else where you want to add to the aesthetic you can put in fresh fruit.Kiwi and StrawberryLast but certainly not least is the Kiwi and Strawberry infusion. This is a fun, colorful, both sweet and tart, and perfect drink for sipping on the patio. The final advice we have for making your own infusions is to have fun and be creative. Our best selling infused cocktails are the result of us trying new things and seeing what flavors and mixers work together and what don't.If you have any ideas for some future infusions Let us know in the comments!!
