Other pineapples are available.

I’ve been threatening to make flavoured vodka for some time now, so with a gap in my usually hectic schedule and a spare bottle of Smirnoff on the shelf, it seemed churlish not to.

Vodka can be flavoured with all manner of ingredients, from mint to raspberries, bison grass to bubble gum, the list is endless! Imagination, or lack of, is all that really limits the cook from conjuring up a memorable tipple to delight and enhance any event.

Now sadly my bison grass stocks are as prolific as my vegetarianism, so I needed to look at what else might be available at this time of year?

Fruit was my first port of call, seasonal and ripe, and what finer sight and smell than a pineapple, heavy with juice and a perfect partner to the vodka. It’s pretty important to get the ripest, freshest fruit you can get your hands on when doing any cooking, or in this case infusing, so that the flavours are naturally at their fullest and sweetest.

Pineapple is good…pineapple and chilli is mesmeric! Now I’m talking a hint, a background warmth of chilli, not a blow your mind out in a vindaloo haze chilli.

The GF had requested blueberry vodka, now blueberries aren’t strictly speaking in season, but after making enquiries with my local fruit and veg supplier (ajsfruitandveg.co.uk) he managed to come up trumps for me again! She will, of course be made to drink bison grass vodka when I finally get around to making it. It’s only fair.

RECIPES

Pineapple and chilli.

• 1 75cl bottle of vodka.
• 1/2 a ripe pineapple, 1cm diced.
• 4 dried chillies, chopped.
• bottle with sealable lid.

Blueberry.

• 1 75cl bottle of vodka.
• 100g blueberries.
• 1 tsp sugar
• bottle with sealable lid.

Blueberries in their natural state usually need a little help in the flavour department, so a little sugar will assist in bringing out some of the flavour.

I just couldn’t help myself, as I was enjoying creating these drinks, I spied a bottle of gin at the back of the shelf so thought I’d give it the pineapple treatment minus the chillies! Now the thought of a pineapple gin and tonic on a warm summers evening…well, it’d be churlish not too!