How to store a home infused spirit, and how long it keeps

The jar is done. Now what

Infusing a bought spirit is the easiest thing in this whole hobby, and it's also the one where most people stop paying attention, because the fun bit is the day you fill the jar and the boring bit is the six months afterwards when the thing is sitting in a cupboard slowly changing without you.

Worth saying plainly before anything else, because people ask: putting fruit or spices into a bottle of gin or vodka you bought at the bottle shop is just flavouring, and it needs no licence of any kind. Owning a still is also legal and we can sell you one. Distilling spirits at home is the part that needs an excise manufacturer licence from the ATO. Those are three different activities and only the middle one is licensed.

Strain it properly, because this is what decides the shelf life

Anything solid left in the bottle keeps working, so a spirit you never strained isn't stored, it's still infusing, and by month four it'll taste nothing like the thing you liked on day five.

Pour it through a fine sieve first to get the bulk out, then through a coffee filter or a piece of clean cloth to catch the fines. Don't squeeze the solids because that's where the bitterness and the cloudiness come from. Let it drip. It takes half an hour and it's the difference between a clear bottle and a murky one.

Then get it into something with a proper seal. Air is the slow killer here, and a half empty bottle with a loose cork will go dull over a few months even though nothing has technically spoiled.

How long each kind actually keeps

The rule underneath all of this is that alcohol is the preservative, so the more you've watered down the strength, the shorter the life.

• Spirits infused with dry ingredients such as spices, coffee, cocoa nibs, dried peel or oak. Strained and sealed, these keep for years in a dark cupboard. They'll change slowly but they won't go off.
• Spirits infused with fresh fruit or herbs. Strain them and they're good for about a year. The fruit has added water and sugar, so the strength has dropped and the clock is running faster than you think.
• Anything with sugar syrup added, so most homemade liqueurs. Six to twelve months, and the fridge is a better home than the cupboard once it's open.
• Anything with cream or dairy in it. Fridge, always. Drink it inside a month. This one isn't a quality question, it's a food safety one.

Dark and cool, and standing upright

Light fades the colour out of a fruit infusion faster than anything else, so a sunny windowsill is the worst shelf in the house even though it's the one that shows the bottle off best. A cupboard is fine. A shed that swings from 5 degrees overnight to 45 degrees in the afternoon is not, because that much movement pushes air in and out past the seal.

Store spirit bottles upright. Wine goes on its side to keep the cork wet, and spirits go upright for the opposite reason, since spirit strength alcohol sitting against a cork will eat it and you'll end up with bits of cork and a taste of it in the glass.

When to tip it out

Honest answer first. A properly strained, properly sealed spirit infusion almost never becomes unsafe, because there's not much that will grow in 35 percent alcohol. What goes wrong is nearly always a batch that wasn't strained, or one that got watered down further than the maker realised.

Tip it out if you can see mould or anything floating that you didn't put there. Tip it out if it smells sour or fizzy rather than boozy. A haze on its own is usually just chill haze or fine sediment and it's not a problem, and neither is a bit of colour loss.

And label the bottle on the day you strain it. Not the day you filled the jar, the day you strained it, because that's the date the clock actually starts from and future you will have no memory of either one.

If you want the same result twice

Steeping real ingredients is lovely and it's never quite repeatable, because the fruit is different every time. If you want a bottle that tastes the same as the last one, an essence and a liqueur base do that job instead, and the two approaches sit happily side by side in the same cupboard.

Shop related products

• Still Spirits Liqueur Base A. Sweetening base for liqueurs, and the thing that shortens your shelf life.
• Still Spirits Schnapps Base 300g. For schnapps style liqueurs made from an essence.
• Still Spirits Oak Cask 50ml. Oak flavour you dose rather than steep, so it stops when you stop.
• Still Spirits English Dry Gin Essence 50ml. A repeatable gin flavour for when steeping botanicals isn't the goal.

Did you know we also keep a lot of the homebrew and spirits range in the shop that never makes it onto the website, including fermenters, a hydrometer and test jar, airlocks, bench and hammer cappers, carbonation drops, no rinse sanitiser and brew sanitise. Give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what's on the shelf.

More in the homebrew range, and Brewhilder will talk you through a batch if you'd rather ask something than read.

Read next

• How to turn everyday spirits into craft level infusions. The making side of this, which is the step before the one above.
• How long to leave oak and spices in a home spirit. Timing while it's still in the jar.
• How to bottle homemade butterscotch schnapps as a gift. Bottling when somebody else has to store it.

Still labelling bottles with masking tape and a marker, still can't read my own handwriting a year later.

Cheers,
Candeece

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