Edible and Audible

It’s strawberry season in these here parts, and that means four words – Tequila por mi Amante. Sure, I love eating strawberries in every conceivable way – jams, pies, on top of cereal, and so on and so on. But in recent times I added drinking strawberries to my early summer repertoire and I must say it’s a habit I plan on keeping. Last summer I made my first batch of Tequila por mi Amante, a strawberry-infused reposado tequila and the results were stunning – good in a cocktail, but really hard not to pour over ice and finish off the entire bottle in one sitting. It’s sweet without being overly sugary – the alcohol brings out the natural essence of the strawberry, which pairs really nicely with the spicy reposado. The only problem last year was I started the infusion in early July, which meant that local strawberries were already out of season and I was forced to used Driscoll’s. Based on the description above this obviously wasn’t a bad thing, but this year I’m excited to have some genuine local Jersey strawberries in there this year in hopes the flavors are even more insanely good. I started my batch a few days ago, I’ll report back in three weeks when the infusion is done, assuming I’m not too drunk on strawberry tequila to write a blog post. That’s a big assumption my friend.

Tequila por mi Amante

• Bunch of ripe strawberries (2 or 3 pints at least, washed, dried, hulled and halved)
• Large mason-type jar
• Reposado tequila, enough to top the strawberries, about 500-750 mL. (I used Siembra Azul last year and using El Jimador 100% agave this year, any decent 100% agave reposado will work.)

Fill jar with the strawberries, fill to top with the tequila. Seal and let rest in the fridge or a cool dark place for three weeks, shaking periodically to jostle some flavor out of the strawberries. After three weeks strain out the strawberries. If you did the infusion in the fridge it’s probably best to store the strawberry-less tequila in the fridge. Don’t worry, it won’t last long.