Experiments Archives - Drunken Alchemy

Boozy Apples and Such

Ok, so UV has a new flavor. If you’ve even remotely read the posts here, or hung out with us, you’ll know how much we love UV. They have a lot of variety in flavors. Also, yay vodka.

The new one is Salty Caramel Apple. A flavor that came out right in time for the holidays. Fun, right?

Well… Sadly, this one was a bit disappointing. The apple flavor is there. Salty, yes. Caramel? Um… Not so strong. It’s more like a tiny lingering after taste.

Eldritch and I really wanted this one to be good. If the caramel was stronger, I think it would be pretty tasty. That’s not to say that it tastes bad. Oh no. It’s smooth and not insanely sweet like the Sugar Crush. It’s just… It’s not as great as we hoped it would be.

That said, we will still be testing it out for other things. Eldritch has a feeling it will be used mainly for pies and such. (It could make a fantastic boozy apple pie… Yum.) Personally, I want to try doing those apple slice jello shots with it. We’ll see how that goes…

In gaming related news… A while back I had posted about Wildstar. I’m still playing that. The whole Drunken Alchemy guild? Well… I did kinda let that fade once I joined the Galaxy Questers. It’s a great guild created by the guys over at Table Titans. While it seems like several people have taken a break from the game, I’m still highly active. On the off chance that anyone reads this, and actually plays Wildstar (Entity server)… Give Kaeva Unari or Kenzi Ysabeau a /wave.

Vamp drinks

We have a new drink to experiment with courtesy of some bartender vamps.

If this is confusing, then you’re either drunk already or you haven’t paid attention to the fact that we are gamers.

Drunken Alchemy spawned from gaming. Vampire the Masquerade in fact. I had a campaign going for a bit before Eldritch joined. She was hooked instantly. While others dropped (or were kicked out due to nonsense/drama), we have both soldiered on. The campaign has been running for over four years now.

Over time, this campaign has grown. Drastically. I have over 200 characters, all with fleshed out backgrounds. They are all mostly there for her characters to interact with, but they all have unique and fascinating stories of their own.

But I’m not here to discuss them. I’m talking about the drinks.

A lot of drinks were inspired by our vamps. Hi Ho Cherry? You can thank Cass for that. She likes board games. They’re pretty. Sundaes? Oh yeah. Vamp inspired body shots. Thank you guys.

The recent addition to the list of things to try comes from a bartender off. A what? Heh. There were two characters, both bartenders, that ended up challenging each other to see who would be voted best bartender. During this challenge, each character had to make a drink that was sweet. Other categories included fruity, strong, and a mixed/layered mystery drink.

Now, one made a Salted Caramel drink. The other made a Chocolate Fudge Silk. In the end, one of the “judges” decided to mix them.

And now we must figure out the Salted Caramel Chocolate Fudge drink. 😀

Our first experiment was half assed. We used caramel vodka and UV Cake. (Measurements are unknown… If it was a full shot of each, I’d be surprised.) Both vodkas were put into chocolate milk, with some salt thrown in.

It was good.

Damn good.

Not perfect though… It still needs work. However, for a late night experiment, it was not the worst we’ve ever had.

On that note, we do have someone who actually wants to try a Ghosty Berry. (Wtf? I know, right?) We’ll have to get some nice big strawberries soaking soon, so he can try one. We’ll let you know how that goes… 😛

Oranges and Ghosty Berries

Huzzah! I kept a promise!

Ok, so the jar of oranges that had been sitting in my fridge soaking in UV Peach?

Destroyed.

We ate them pretty fast last night. They were delicious! Little mandarin oranges are perfect for drinks, or just alcohol infused munchies. They soak up booze really well, and hold the flavor too. I’ll have to try soaking cranberries in UV Peach too… Then I can combine the two for a Sex on the Beach fruit salad. Fucking yum. (Or… Oranges in Peach Schnapps, Cranberries in straight vodka? Yeah. I’m totally doing that…)

Now, alcohol infused fruit is pretty much for the taste. It’s fun to have fruit that makes your mouth a little tingly, and has a tiny kick to it. They go great in punch. Usually though, they aren’t destined to kick your ass and get you wasted. The oranges are more of an appetizer.

Which brings me to the strawberries… (of DOOM!)

Eldritch had made a pie a while back including strawberries. At one point, she put some Bacardi 151 in a container with strawberries. She wanted a really kick your ass kind of pie… The pie itself was tasty. Now, she said the strawberries weren’t bad the first week she put them in there. Obviously, they had a punch. 151 does not fuck around.

The downside?

The leftover strawberries were left in the 151 for about the same amount of time as the oranges. A few weeks.

Let me tell you what happened…

The strawberries died.

They were resurrected.

They mutated, died again, and have now come to haunt your dreams.

I am not kidding. Those fucking strawberries were OMGWTFHARSHITBURNSOMGITSFULLOFEVILEYOHOEWSewyoledh!!!1!!

Fucking yikes.

I highly do not recommend doing this. Those things are brutal, and the 151 turns the strawberries into some sort of evil incarnate.

On the plus side, Eldritch confirmed something that we’d seen at the local grocery store. We had seen moonshine in cute little jars on the shelf before. The ones with strawberries in it looked really weird. The strawberries were white.

As it turns out, strawberries really do lose their color if you let them sit in harsh stuff like that. Good to know. Worse to eat…

Macon

A few weeks ago I received a Maple Bacon flavored hard candy shot glass. It looked horrible…

Therefore, we had to try it.

The shot glass itself was a little slimy. It seemed to have a slight coating on the outside so that it didn’t stick to the plastic wrap it came in. That wasn’t promising. I made sure to have a paper towel handy because this was already a messy experiment. This slimy and somewhat sticky shot glass definitely had the maple smell. You couldn’t smell any bacon because, well, the bits of “bacon” were stuck inside the candy. Also, who knows what those bits are actually made of…

The Experiment: We filled the shot glass with plain UV Vodka. The goal was to see how the alcohol would affect the shot glass and vice versa. Would the alcohol eat away the candy? Would any flavor get infused into the vodka? Would pieces of “bacon” be floating in your drink?

Yeah, the questions just kept getting worse… So, we filled up the shot glass and let it sit for a bit while we geeked out and discussed D&D. We kept checking on it to see how the shot glass was holding up.

Would the alcohol eat away the candy? Answer: Yes. You can see the line that the vodka made in the shot glass. It probably sat there for at least half an hour to an hour. We weren’t really paying attention for two reason. 1) It looks gross. 2) D&D.

So… Once we finally got the courage to try it, we realized how utterly horrible and terrifying this mini monstrosity is. The shot glass is a gag gift. Really. Every person who looks at this thing has the same reaction. A look of disgust followed by an involuntary gag at the thought of how it might taste. We did manage to get a video of the test, but technical difficulties are preventing me from uploading that at the moment. If I get it working, then I’ll add it here.

The Test: We had filled the shot glass with a full shot worth of vodka. Eldritch and I drank half a shot each. I, unfortunately, got to go first as it was my gift.

Would any flavor get infused into the vodka? Answer: Sadly, yes. First off, it was plain vodka. Was. There was an unusual flavor added in. We couldn’t really pinpoint what it tasted like, but our best guess was that it came from the base candy ingredients. Possibly the corn syrup? There was absolutely no maple or bacon flavoring in the vodka. Whatever it was, it tasted bad. It turned perfectly good vodka into… Wtf?

Would pieces of “bacon” be floating in your drink? Answer: Thankfully no. As you can see from these pictures, there are chunks of “bacon” in the glass. These things aren’t listed in the ingredients, and that scares me. However, none of these pieces broke off into the vodka before we downed that shot. If there had been, we wouldn’t have drank it. Just… No.

The Results: Ew.

All in all, it was just gross. Not puke inducing gross, but still… Ew. We can check that off our list as something we’ve tried. We will never try that again though. We had a laugh, and decided to push the experiment a bit more. We still wanted to see how long it would take alcohol to eat through the glass, so we poured half a shot worth of vodka in the glass and let it sit overnight.

The Second Results: The vodka ate away a lot of the candy. You can see how clear it got in the pictures below. It did eat away a few holes in the glass too. This got even more disgusting when we started moving the shot glass around and realized how much the vodka was oozing. Oozing. The corn syrup and whatever other mystery ingredients had mutated the vodka and turned it into a horrible Macon sludge.

And no, we did not try it.

There are other candy shot glasses out there. We’ve seen peppermint before, and that sounds a thousand times better than the Macon. We also have ideas for making our own, but… That’s an experiment for another time.

Update on Strawberry Shakes

Boulaine’s strawberry makes for a delicious milkshake. Also, Dekuyper’s Peach schnapps is rather tasty in a shake too.

Also, I’ve had some mandarin oranges soaking in that peach schnapps for… Almost a month now. My problem is that I keep forgetting they are there, or time just runs out on the weekend and then it gets too late to really start on alcohol. This weekend, however, is my birthday. Those oranges will be had.

Slacking, Tequila Rose, and Almond Joys

Gah! It’s been a month without postings here. Bad Alchemists…

Right, so… Unfortunately there’s a reason we haven’t posted anything. We haven’t really done anything. No major experiments to share. Nothing super exciting. It’s not like we haven’t been having ideas and/or lack the motivation to do things. We just haven’t had the time for it. That sucks. Totally.

This weekend is a bit short on time as well. We can at least attempt some type of alchemy and post results, but who knows. What I do know is that I need to remember to post things here as I think of them. The random ideas during the week can be shared. That’s part of the Alchemy process. Think of creative uses for alcohol, share it, improve upon it with the help of friends.

So, friends, backing up a few days, I had a random craving for Tequila Rose. I really do enjoy that one. Creamy. Strawberry. Smooth and won’t get you royally fucked up. It’s a happy buzz type of drink. Now, the company also has a chocolate, java, and cinnamon flavor. Sadly, I can’t find any of them locally. They all sound awesome, and I wish I could get a bottle of each to try out.

However, upon visiting the website, it brought up a good point. Always check the company website for recipes. They know their product, and they will have examples. These are things you may or may not have already thought of trying, but it’s always helpful to get some idea of what to try next. (Although, personally, I think I’ll pass on the Tequila Rose + Jagermeister combo. Ick.)

Oh, by the way, I lied about the experiments. (Hey, it’s my website, I can do that if I want. :P) Eldritch did make her own version of an Almond Joy. Chocolate liqueur, Amaretto (Dekyper’s), and Malibu rum. It was half Chocolate + Amaretto and half Malibu in a shot. Granted, we only did one shot each as a tester, but it wasn’t bad. I’m thinking this could actually be pretty tasty using chocolate milk instead of the chocolate liqueur. That way you could have a big drink versus a shot.

-Rabid

Grasshoppers

Two weeks ago we had the amazing fortune of trying out Grasshopper jello jigglers. One of our alchemists, Eldritch, is fantastic about combining gelatin with alcohol. (And yes, I’ve apologized for the slacking before… Should’ve posted this when we first had them, but we were, well, busy drinking. :P)

The Grasshoppers fucking win. Just fucking win.

Now, she’ll be working on a new batch of Strawberry Banana ones, and will be taking pictures for a step by step instruction/how-to/this shit is awesome post.

Until then, I can reiterate that these things are amazing. She combined the Grasshopper drink with plain flavorless gelatin. The result is a jello jiggler style pure alcohol shot. I say pure because there is no water involved in these. Normal jello shots are still half and half. When making standard jello shots the cold water part in the recipe is replaced by alcohol. (And just like any alcohol you drink, or in this case eat, make sure you also have some water in your night to keep you hydrated and prevent hangovers. Cuz yes, you can catch a buzz off these.)

What do they look like? Well, she let them set up in a mini muffin pan. So they ended up looking like this:

What do they taste like? Well, Grasshopper. The mint flavor is definitely there. It’s yummy. Now… Here comes the strange part. They were creamy. Yes, creamy. It totally fucks with your brain. Honestly, your brain is saying “Yay, jello! Wait… What is this? This isn’t jello… You lied! But there’s alcohol… It’s ok now!”

I mean, really, you have certain expectations of gelatin. It jiggles. It’s fruity. It’s smooth. But creamy? Not a word you’d ever use to describe gelatin. And minty? No fucking way. But that’s what these are. Creamy minty jello shots.

Fucking. Awesome.

What’s a Grasshopper?

1 Part Crème de menthe
1 Part Crème de cacao
1 Part Fresh Cream

Shake with ice, strain into glass. Enjoy.

UV Chocolate Cake

The other day one of our alchemists was browsing the vodka section at the local liquor store and found out that UV has a couple new flavors. Chocolate Cake and Whipped Cream. She decided to pick up the Chocolate Cake, and we tried it out this weekend.

Right. This one is tasty, but… It doesn’t quite capture a true chocolate cake flavor. The regular UV Cake is, well, more cakey. (It’s my website, I can make up words if I want to. :P) The chocolate cake tastes more like a chocolate tootsie pop. Which still isn’t bad. It’s smooth, and leaves a lingering chocolate aftertaste.

That said, we first tried mixing it with Cherry Pucker. Half and half as a shot. Now, this isn’t exactly as good as a Hi Ho Cherry (Half UV Red, Half Cherry Pucker). It’s nice, but not quite something you want to just shoot straight up. While it does invoke the flavors of a chocolate covered cherry, it seems like this one would be more appropriate in a martini glass. Chilled, with a few cherries dropped in. It’s kind of one you’d rather sip versus chug.

We also tried mixing the UV CC with vanilla and butterscotch schnapps . Did these as shots too. Half and half, though at one point there was a varied layering of all three together.

This one will definitely require more testing to see what really makes the chocolate cake flavor pop. Some things, like the butterscotch, are really overpowering and tend to take over other flavors. Personally, I’d like to find something that really brings the cake part out.

I’m sure we’ll get back to testing that one next weekend.

Strawberry Banana

Testing out the banana schnapps with Strawberry Crush soda. We got backups in case the Banana Nut didn’t work out. Even though it did work great, there are still options.

So, banana with strawberry soda is alternative test one. That got a wow. Surprised at how tasty that was. Don’t really have amounts for it as it was just a pure test. Bit of strawberry soda with a splash of the banana. It was enough to blend the flavors nicely. Could easily be done as a weak shot, or a full glass if you mix it right. (I.e. don’t put too much banana in or it will overpower the soda.)

Test two is the strawberry jello with the banana schnapps. This wins too. Again, the flavors blend great.

Banana Nut

First experiment of the evening is Banana Nut. This came about because of another idea for a shot, Muffin Bombs, but we couldn’t find blueberry schnapps for that one… We’ll try that one eventually.

So, for now, we ended up going for a Banana Nut muffin style shot. Banana Liqueur and Frangelico’s. Half and half.

The Frangelico’s is very strong scent wise, and you get a hint of the banana. Taste wise, it is very sweet. Good combination and very smooth. As you take the shot, the nutty flavor remains strong and then the banana hits you at the end. You can adjust the amounts if you prefer a bit more banana flavoring, but overall this one works.

We also tried it as an actual “bomb”. Though, technically, we were a bit lazy and just poured it all together instead of doing the traditional dropping of the shot. We added the Banana Nut shot to A&W cream soda. It, amazingly enough, does taste a lot like banana nut bread.

Experiment: Banana Nut. Success!

Note: Again, this is a very sweet shot. Probably a finisher rather than something to start the night off with. One or two and you’ll probably be good. This is not a shot you can do all night, but definitely a fun one.