Lavender Bitters

bitters_photo

Original Sourcehttp://www.thepeche.com/home/2011/10/17/lavender-bitters-plum-ginger-gin-cocktails-and-band-of-bitte.html

I’ve made some minor tweaks to the recipe above, but mostly used it as-is. Yummy!

Ingredients

  • 8 oz vodka, 100-proof (actually used 10 oz, which gave 8oz net)
  • 1 cup dried culinary grade organic lavender
  • 2 slices of fresh ginger
  • 1½ teaspoon dried orange peel
  • 4 cloves
  • 1 teaspoon cane sugar simple syrup (1 part water, 1 part sugar, heat until sugar dissolves)

Instructions
In a small glass that has a tight-fitting lid (a 1 pint canning jar works well), throw in everything except the syrup. Put the lid on the container and put it somewhere dark and cool. Let it hang out for a week. Open it. Stir. Look at how brown everything is now. The lavender looks like brown rice now. Cool. Put the lid back on and store for another week.

Place a fine-mesh strainer over a small bowl. Pour the lavender mixture into the strainer. Press the mixture with the back of a large metal spoon. Or use a spatula. You’re forcing out all of the bitter goodness from the mixture.

Discard the remnants of the lavender mixture.

Add the syrup to the bitters. Stir.

Pour the bitters into a tiny little bottle. One with a dropper helps. You can find nice, cobalt-blue 4oz bottles at Amazon.com.

Your life is magically better.