Infuse Your Gin With Blueberries For An Easy Cocktail Upgrade

If you're invested in cocktail culture, you've likely heard a lot about infusions. Infused alcohol is just what it sounds like. You can create an infused liquid by putting an ingredient into a bottle of liquor, leaving the ingredient in the bottle for a few days, and then removing that extra ingredient. Infusions are the perfect way to get creative with your spirits at home, but it's important to choose ingredients and spirits that meld well together. For example, if you're looking to upgrade your bottle of gin, try infusing it with the beloved blueberry.

Gin is a very herbal spirit, and by definition, must be distilled with juniper berries. These berries imbue gin with their flavor, giving it a pine-forward spice and light botanical notes. Blueberries work well in an infusion because their fruity sweetness and light floral notes pair well with the botanical-forward, herbaceous quality of gin. You can use blueberry-infused gin in a number of cocktails, such as a blueberry gin and tonic or a Tom Collins with a blueberry twist. Take a look through these Tasting Table gin cocktail recipes and look for any swaps that may benefit from this infusion.

The first step to our infusion is choosing a bottle of gin. London dry gins aren't sweetened after distillation, unlike their regular gin counterparts, making the juniper notes more front-facing and an ideal partner for the blueberry infusion. This Tasting Table roundup explains the flavors of 15 different gin brands; take a look to help make your choice.

Once you have your bottle picked out, the next step is crucial to your infusion's success. Popping your blueberries into the gin straight from the carton will not yield the best results. Instead, you'll need to break down the blueberry, even if ever so slightly. You can lightly crush the blueberries to split their skin, muddle them, or cook them until liquid begins to seep from the berries. A clever hack for a more flavorful infusion is to throw the blueberries into a blender to release their flavor. From here, you simply add in a full bottle of gin with the berries (putting the mixture into a large jar) and let it sit for a few days. Once you've let the berries impart their flavor into the gin, strain the mixture and start serving up this floral, fruity, herbaceous infusion.