Making mint infused vodka

I finally got around to (after vaguely poking around at methods for ages) making my own liquor that wasn't beer. Homebrewing seems like too much space and cost, but I always wanted to make my own liqueur. At the end of the gardening season I had a whole plantload of peppermint leaves left over so I set out to infuse some peppermint something. It turned out to be really ridiculously straightforward:

1. Get a whole big old bottle of Vodka from the store. I chose the cheapes bottle I could that didn't look like something from NEP era Russia: 1.5 Liters of Gordon's.
2. Get a whole big old load of mint sprigs. I used about as much as I could fit in both my cupped hands.
3. Shove the mint leaves into an old empty Vodka bottle (or empty out the one with the Vodka in, but hang on to the Vodka for a bit)
4. Pour the Vodka back into the bottle with the mint leaves in. Cap it.
5. Keep it in a dark place for about a week, shake it up 2-3 times a day to get the flavors to mingle.
6. Taste it every couple of days (optional but fun) to see how it's coming along
7. Remove the leaves
8. Let it sit for a few more weeks to "age" (I dunno if this really is necessary but people seem to think it's a good idea and it makes me feel like a professional with a closet full of one bottle of aging booze)
9. If you want to make a true liqueur rather than a flavored Vodka (the former is good for sipping, but you can do tasty shots and make tasty cocktails with the latter) then mix it with some sugar syrup:

• Mix equal parts sugar and water, heat gently until sugar dissolves
• Dilute Vodka with syrup until it's the desired sugariness

That's it! the mechanism is the same as when making tea. The mint oil is leached out into the surrounding liquid during the infusion period, flavoring the mixture.

I suspect that home infusion is gonna be a bit of a maybe minorish craze in the next couple of years, although it seems like it might be hard to market products towards this. Maybe someone could start selling a Vodka labeled as something like "Neutral Infusion Spirits" so that people would think it was essential. They could claim that it was particularly flavorless and impurity free.

Incidentally, you can apply the same principles to pretty much any flavorful substance you could care to stick in a bottle. There is a very good site for schnapps recipes here.