Infusing spirits with flavor is a great way to experiment with your own personal tastes. The basic concept is to marry a variety of choice flavors into a base liquor to create a custom-flavored spirit. Vodka is the most common base spirit used and the other light spirits (gin, sake, light rum) can also be used for almost any flavor. Infusing darker spirits is a little touchier but it will work if you choose the right complimentary flavor to the liquor like an apricot or cherry brandy.

Time Required: up to 2 weeks

Here’s How:

1. Choose your spirit

Your base spirit will set the foundation for a good infusion. Choosing a decent spirit that is smooth and clean will allow the added flavors to shine. If you’re experimenting with a new infusion you may want to use a less expensive bottle so as not to waste money or good liquor. Another option is to use a home filtering device like the Vodkastick, which will allow you to filter out the impurities of a cheap brand.

2. Choose your flavors

Herbs, spices and fruits are most commonly used for infusions. The most popular infusions are fruit based, however you can use your imagination to create some wonderful combinations. I experimented with garlic, habenero and basil in vodka for some great Bloody Mary bases. Use your creativity to personalize your creations. For best results, use fresh ingredients only.

3. The Beginning

The process itself is very easy. Choose a clean, air-tight jar: quart sized mason jars work well. Using smaller jars will allow you to divide a liter of vodka into a few jars, giving you the ability to create small batches of a variety of flavors at once. Wash the ingredients, place them inside the jar and fill it with vodka. Shake a few times and cover tightly with a lid.

4. Infusion Time

You will want to store your infusion in a cool, dark place and shake it 3-5 times a day for the duration of the infusion. On average the ingredients should stay in the liquor for 3-5 days. Some of your more intense flavors will only need 3 days, less intense flavors should stay in the jar for a full week or more (see the infusion times list below). You will want to do a taste test every few days to see if the flavors are sufficient.

5. The Finish

Once your infusion has reached it’s peak in flavor you’ll need to take the flavoring ingredients out of the jar. Use a fine strainer or paper coffee filter to strain the vodka into another clean jar or bowl. You can return it to it’s original jar if you would like, cleaning the jar thoroughly first. Store the finished infusion as you would any other liquor of it’s type.

They look more like modern works of art than anything that has come out of a science laboratory:

But these striking and colorful images are actually samples of alcoholic drinks that have been magnified up to 1000 times under a powerful laboratory microscope.Capturing the molecules that make up our favorite drinks like vodka, rose wine and tequila, the pictures were taken in Florida State University’s chemistry department.

Produced by American firm Bevshots, they are on offer as art works for buyers who appreciate the hidden beauty of cocktails.

HOW ARE THE IMAGES CAPTURED?

The images are made by first crystallizing the drink of choice on a lab slide. Using a standard light microscope with a camera attached, the light source is polarized and passed through the crystal. This creates the magnificent colors we see in our favorite drinks.

Each image is created by using a pipette of each particular drink and squeezing a drop onto a slide. Then the droplets are allowed to dry out and the slide is placed under the microscope and a picture is taken. It can take up to four weeks for the alcohol to dry out completely in an airtight container, and the whole process can take up to three months.

Cocktails can have fruit and soft drinks in them which contain citric acids and complex sugars which dry out well and look great photographed. The incredible shapes and colours of the boozy artwork are highlighted by shining natural light on top and through the bottom of the slide.

THE HISTORY OF ALCOHOLIC ART

– In 1992, a research scientist named Michael Davidson stumbled upon a genius idea right under his nose – literally. In his 25 year career through the many facets of microscopy, he had taken photographs under the microscope of a collection of items – DNA, biochemicals and vitamins

– Looking for novel ways to fund his Florida State University lab, Davidson decided to take his microphotographs to businesses for possible commercial opportunities. While presenting his pictures to established retail companies, one necktie manufacturer changed his creative direction with just one word – cocktails

– With this new direction, Davidson took his microphotography a step further. Along with mixed drinks, he picked out a few favorite brews and wines too, took some shots of the beverages under his microscope and the Molecular Expressions Cocktail Collection was born. The drink-donned neckties were top shelf from 1995 to 2002, and now his images are available as framed prints with BevShots.

ALCOHOL IMAGES

Whisky: The deep amber color of the whisky comes from the barrels it is matured in – where much of the chemistry of whisky takes place

Vodka: The globules are possibly due to the dissolved solids in the drink, sugar in this case. There are less colors as there tends to be less oily flavor components in vodka because it is distilled and run through charcoal to purify it and take these out

Dry martini: the streaks could be due to higher levels of essential oils or possibly due to tannin like compounds which give rise to its bitterness

Tequila : Much darker probably either due to the high levels of fructose in the tequila from the agave plant or possibly high levels of essential oils also from the agave plant

American Hefeweizen

American Ice Lager

American Lager

Australian Pale Lager

Black and Tan

Black Russian

Bloody Mary

Chablis

Champagne

Coffee Liqueur

Cosmopolitan Martini

Daiquiri

English Pure Brewed Lager

Irish Stout

Japanese Dry Lager

Japanese Rice Lager

Margarita

Pina Colada

Sake

Scotch

Vodka Tonic

White Table Wine

White Russian

Warnings not to drink alcohol while taking a medication are often ignored. But mixing Flagyl (metronidazole), an antibiotic, with alcoholic beverages can make a person very sick. Find out what happens when these two drugs are mixed.

Flagyl (Metronidazole) Interactions With Alcohol

Flagyl is the brand name of metronidazole, an antibiotic used to treat a variety of infections, from stomach ulcers to meningitis. (Metronidazole is also found in some other brand name antibiotics, including ; check your antibiotic’s label.) Most of Flagyl’s side effects are run-of-the-mill, such as nausea and vomiting. However, Flagyl is reported to interact dangerously with another common drug: alcohol.

Drinking even a small amount of alcohol (ethanol) while taking Flagyl can make a person very sick. Flagyl and alcohol together cause severe nausea and vomiting, flushing, fast heartbeat (tachycardia), and shortness of breath. The reaction has been described as being similar to the effects of Antabuse, a drug that treats alcoholism by causing patients to become very sick when they drink.

Obviously, beverages containing alcohol should not be consumed during treatment with Flagyl, but small amounts of alcohol can be found in hidden sources as well. Some kinds of mouthwash and cold medicine contain alcohol. Small amounts may also be served at religious services. Patients should avoid all of these alcohol sources while taking Flagyl and for 48 hours following the end of treatment.

What Causes the Bad Reaction?

Because the Flagyl-alcohol reaction is said to resemble the Antabuse-alcohol reaction, researchers originally assumed that they work the same way. Ordinarily, the liver breaks down ethanol in two steps: first into acetaldehyde, then into acetic acid. Antabuse inhibits the second step, causing levels of acetaldehyde in the blood to rise. The increased blood acetaldehyde causes the acute symptoms of vomiting, flushing, etc.

More recent research has shown that Flagyl does not inhibit the breakdown of acetaldehyde, and that blood acetaldehyde does not increase when Flagyl and alcohol are combined. Therefore, some other mechanism must be at work. One set of researchers (Karamanakos et al. 2007) suggested it may be related to increased serotonin because they were able to show that Flagyl increases brain serotonin in rats. Another set of researchers (Visapää et al. 2002) noted that there are only 10 human case reports of a bad Flagyl-alcohol reaction and suggested that the problem may not be as common as previously thought. They did, however, note that it is possible that this “reaction can.

The freezing point is far below that of water. Exactly what that freezing point is depends on the proof of the liquor.

Water freezes at 0°C (32°F) and the freezing point of ethanol alcohol is -114°C (-173.2°F). Alcoholic beverages are a mixture of both alcohol and water (with sugars and other additives in some distilled spirits) so the freezing point of all of you alcoholic beverages is somewhere in between. The exact freezing point of vodka, gin, tequila, rum, whiskey and the myriad of liqueurs is dependent on its proof, or alcohol per volume. The lower the proof, the warmer the freezing point: the higher the proof, the colder the freezing point.

For example:

* 24 proof liquor freezes at -6.7°C (20°F)
* 64 proof liquor freezes at -23.33°C (-10°F)
* 84 proof liquor freezes at -34.44°C (-30°F)

These freezing points are much colder than the average home freezer will reach, so chilling a bottle in the freezer should not freeze the liquor inside. However, your freezer could get cold enough to freeze low proof liqueurs, beer and malt beverages. These low proof beverages will get slushy, and eventually freeze, if left in the freezer for too long and can explode leaving a big, frozen mess if it gets too cold.

Snake wine is an alcoholic beverage that includes a whole venomous snake in the bottle. It originated in Vietnam and can be found around Southeast Asia. The snakes, preferably venomous ones, are not usually preserved for their meat but to have the snake poison dissolved in the liquor. However, the snake venom is denatured by the ethanol; its proteins are unfolded and therefore inactivated.

The snake is often placed with many smaller snakes, turtles, insects, or birds, and left to steep for many months. The wine is drunk as a restorative in small shots or cups.

Snakes are widely believed to possess medicinal qualities and the wine is often advertised to cure everything from farsightedness to hair loss, as well as to increase sexual performance. However, many of these claims are likely exaggerated to attract buyers.

Snake wine and Scorpion wine are asian beverages that can be found in some Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam, Thailand, Laos Cambodia, but also in Korea, and Japan.

To prepare this incredible beverage a cobra snake or some scorpions are put into a bottle fulfilled with transparent rice wine liquor and some herbs are added before the drink is left to ferment for months. The venomous cobra snake used to make Snake wine is preserved to have the snake poison dissolved in the rice wine, but because snake venoms are protein-based they are inactivated by the denaturing effects of ethanol, and no more dangerous, but this makes a healthy liquor with many health benefits.