Not all my "cooking" in the kitchen is edible....sometimes it wasn't intended to be either.
About a month ago I was using some diluted citrus oil to dissuade the cats from an area. Cats don't seem to like citrus and the dog doesn't mind much so I was using it to spray down the area around the dog's bed.
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| Ready to sit out in the sun |
About that time I recall seeing something online either at
Gizmodo or
Instructables regarding how you could make a mini flame thrower with just a flame and a piece of orange peel. There is a fair amount of oil in the peel and I figured...."
I've got oranges, why am I throwing out the peel and buying orange oil at the store?"
The first thing I did was collect some orange peels. That was easy enough. I spread out the peels on a cookie sheet and left them in the oven until they dried out. Then I blended up the pieces of peel in my grinder and packed it all into a pint jar. The next step was to top off the jar with vodka. There wasn't a lot of room in the jar but if you let it settle some and then top off you can get it full.
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| Orange & Boozy Fragrance |
This jar got a lid and was set in the window for a couple of weeks. I've seen some guides saying that you only needed to let it sit for a few days, but they also said the peels would dry out far quicker than it took me, so I just went with what my gut said to do.
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| Before |
Once I finally got tired of seeing the jar out on the shelf I opened it up and separated the chopped peel from the infused vodka. The peels smelled kind of nice and I left the bowl out for a while to enjoy the scent. The liquid went into a half-pint jar and was set aside to let the vodka evaporate. This took a long time and as the vodka evaporated the remaining liquid got darker and darker. I noticed that out cat Polly wasn't trying to sleep on top of the stove like she had before I started this drying out.
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| I wouldn't drink this shot! |
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| Ready to use |
The total volume was just enough to fill up an empty essential oil jar I had lying about.
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| Shared on |
2 comments:
How long did it take for the vodka to dry out? And did you cover it while it was drying?
I do not recall, but I'd guess a week and I did not cover it all all while drying. I suppose if you heated it gently you could make the alcohol evaporate faster. The next time I do this I think I'm going to simply zest the skins and dry that instead.
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