More results: black tea and lemon vodka

Last week's infusion experiment, black tea and lemon vodka, infused for about a day. Due to time constraints, we bottled the infusion taste untested, and waited until the next day before conducting a true test. The loose tea cold-steeped the vodka to a dark brown color, as we expected. Before bottling, the infusion looked like this:



We strained the tea leaves and lemon zest out of the vodka through cheesecloth while bottling it.

It should be noted that neither of the Mad Scienticians are avid tea drinkers. We generally only drink it when we are sick, or when a rare mood strikes us. Therefore, we are not qualified to review the quality of the tea flavor in its own right.

This testing occurred on the same night as the Big Experiment testing, so as you might tell, we were slightly buzzed by this point. However, we do not believe it was enough to adversely affect our analysis.



I felt that the vodka had "a strong tea flavor all the way through, though it still has a significant vodka flavor component, and a bit of a burn on the back end. The lemon flavor is barely noticeable in its own right, but it is present as a part of the tea flavor, which is as it should be. It's not something I would drink often on its own, but I bet it would taste great with our honey vodka."

Wayland's thoughts ran along similar lines. "This reminds me of being sick, though not in a bad way. Generally, when I'm sick, I turn to tea. The problem is, I usually add copious amounts of sugar or honey to my tea. I feel like this vodka needs a sweetness that isn't there. There is a mild vodka burn to this, but it is hardly noticeable. Other than the lack of sweetness, this is excellent."

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Subsequently, we decided to put our mutual theory to the test, by combining this with honey vodka.

Black Tea/Honey Shot

Shake with ice and pour into a shot glass:
½ oz. Mad Scientician™ Black Tea and Lemon vodka
½ oz. Mad Scientician™ Honey vodka

This is exactly what we felt was missing when we tasted the black tea. The sweetness supplements the taste of the tea vodka, and cancels out its back-end burn. Wayland felt that it could use a higher tea ratio, possibly two-thirds tea to one-third honey; I thought it was fine as it is, though the higher ratio may be preferred by tea lovers.

Brendan's score: 3.5 flasks out of 5
Wayland's score: 3.5 flasks out of 5
Overall score:

Black tea and lemon vodka

Unfortunately, we did not have time to bring the Big Experiment to a close last night, so we will not be posting the results until later this week. However, in the meantime, we have a brand new infusion experiment, straight out of the reader suggestion files (thanks Jonathan): black tea and lemon vodka.

For this experiment, we are using the zest of one lemon, and six bags of Lipton Black Pearl tea. Of course, we remained cautious throughout this experiment, in hopes of avoiding the Curse of the Black Pearl.



We began the experiment by zesting a lemon with our patent pending citrus zester, developed right here in the Infusions of Grandeur laboratory.



We dropped the lemon zest into a science jar and grabbed the box of tea bags. As we opened the box, we noticed what was written on the back of the box. It was as if this tea was intended just for us.



Of course, it wasn't meant for us. The process that makes vodka infusions is, of course, essentially the same as the process that makes standard tea. Like water, if we boiled the vodka first, the infusion would occur very quickly, though much of the alcohol would evaporate in the process.

Despite Lipton's fancy-shaped tea bags, we decided that there was no point in using the bags themselves, since we would have to filter out the lemon zest anyway. We cut open six tea bags and dropped the loose leaves into the science jar.



Once this was done, we poured in the vodka and put the jar into a cupboard. This experiment should only take a day, so we might test it and the Big Experiment at the same time.