Bacon vodka? Yes! Bacon has exploded in popularity in the last few years. There are memes, shirts, and even festivals about how amazing bacon is. So why not make some booze with it too.

So we did. Bacon Vodka! 

How to Make Bacon Vodka At Home

For STU’s, making bacon vodka is a no brainer. Combined with our Smoked Jalapeno Bloody Mary Mix (or any of our three flavors) and you’ve got a ridiculously good and easy to make bloody mary that gives you restaurant quality from the comfort of home.

But bacon infused vodka is not just reserved for Bloody Mary’s you can make other drinks too. We have recipes at the end of this post. 

One of the most incredible things about vodka is it’s so adaptable to a flavor that you can do almost anything to it. If you’re new to infusing vodka or an old veteran, you can make just about any flavor. From pickles to sweet fruit, anything that you wish, and we figured today would be a perfect day to infuse it with bacon.

Now one of the exciting things about vodka is that it is very adaptable to flavor. And bacon is one of the most interesting flavors you can mix with vodka. 

Infusing bacon with vodka is remarkably simple. There are two ways to do it, and we’ll cover both techniques in this post and give you our opinion on our favorite.

We are going to cover both short and longer processes. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. 

Ingredients and materials for making Bacon Vodka at home:

  • Bottle of vodka
  • Five slices of bacon
  • Coffee filter
  • Glass jar
  • Frying pan

Yes that’s it.

What Type of Vodka for Bacon Vodka:

Because we’re infusing the vodka and making a new flavor, it doesn’t have to be top-shelf. I prefer Titos for most of my Bloody Mary’s, which we are using today. But feel free to go with a lower or higher end vodka, depending on your budget and preference.

The Bacon: 

I went to whole foods and got this plain ole bacon. You can get a smoked or flavored bacon, but that will change the taste as the vodka absorbs the bacon.

Container:

I used a mason jar for the infusion, but again use what you prefer.

How to Make Bacon Infused Vodka

There are two infusion processes to make your own bacon vodka, and we’re going to do both. 

Bacon Fat Washing:  

Fat wash is a technique initially popularized by Evan Freeman in New York. This process uses bacon fat and grease and not the bacon strips. The bacon is a byproduct, albeit a delicious byproduct that we’re going to eat. All of the attention will be used on the fat, and this creates an intense bacon-flavored cloth.

It’s less time consuming but requires more stirring and work. But the taste is fantastic.

Direct Bacon Infused Vodka:

This is the more traditional route. Take some bacon, plop it into some vodka, and wait for infusion magic. This process uses the actual bacon strips and vodka to merge flavors. Similar to Power Rangers, the sum of their parts is more valuable than alone.

It does take days vs. hours, but it’s “set it and forgot it” easy. 

Let’s begin.

Bacon Infused Vodka – Fat Wash

Step 1. 

Start by cooking off about a pound of bacon, which will likely render you somewhere in the neighborhood of four ounces of bacon fat. 

Step 2: 

You got your fat render and put it into a smaller container. So A little bit easier to control when you’re adding it to your vodka. 

Step 3:

Next, we’re going to start the vodka infusion process. Add the vodka to a neutral container. A mason jar works great. 

Step 4:

Add the four ounces of bacon fat to the vodka. 

Step 5:

Much like oil and water, vodka and bacon fat are not going to stay together for very long. So periodically, you want to give it a good stir. 

Let it sit at room temperature for four to five hours. This is where the natural infusion process takes place between the fats and the vodka. 

You’ll notice that even if you let that sit for just a couple of minutes, the bacon fats are rising to the top, and the bottom will sit a little bit lower down. 

So it’s essential to make sure every 15 to 20 minutes for that four-hour process to ensure that the bacon fats got plenty of exposure to the vodka. I set a reminder on Alexa or my phone to make it simple.

Step 6:

Now that we’ve finished mixing in the flavor, we need to separate the bacon fat from the spirit. So put it directly in the freezer and let all that bacon fat come together so that we can separate them and filter it.

Step 7: 

After about four hours at room temperature, take your vodka and bacon container, and put it in the freezer. This allows all of the fats to come together and float at the top of the vodka. It forms a nice solid layer that’s easy to remove.  

Step 8: 

Take the fat layer and use a spoon to extract the fat from the container. 

Step 9:

Take the vodka and run it once through a coffee filter. 

Bonus: If you really want to take it an extra mile and do a second degree of filtration, you can throw it a second time through a British filter, which is essentially a charcoal filter. 

The filter will take out all the bacon fat, all the solids, and what you’re gonna be left with is this intense bacon flavor.

Now we’re going to talk about the other way to make it. 

Bacon Vodka: Infused with Bacon Strips

Step 1. 

Cook yourself some bacon. We’re only going to use about 4 or 5 strips.

Step 2: 

Add the vodka to a neutral container. A mason jar works great. 

Step 3:

Next, we’re going to start the vodka infusion process. Add the four strips of bacon and put them in with the vodka. 

Step 4:

Place in the fridge and wait. 

You can get some of the grease to come off the bacon, and every so often, what I would do is when it’s when it’s covered and let it sit for a while.

You know, as you can see, the grease is already coming off the vodka, and the color is changing ever so slightly already. 

Presto! Now wait a few days.

For the most bacon flavor, my recommendation is, depending on a taste, if you want this to be really, really have a super-strong bacon flavor, you need to keep it for a few days. 

But I would suggest no longer than a week. 

Step 6:

So what we’re going to do is we’re going to toss us into the first, And I’m going to show you how to strain it. 

Step 7:

After four days of infusion, you can see the color of the vodka has changed tremendously. And you can see that we’ve got a lot of fat content towards the top. We don’t want that on our in our vodka. 

So similar to the fat wash, we’re going to strain everything with coffee filters. Feel free to opt for using a cheesecloth. They both work fine.

The coffee filter will come in handy to get all of the bacon pieces and fat content out. What you are left with is a smooth, bacon flavored vodka. 

You can enjoy it, whether on the rocks or the cocktail. And hopefully, you’ll be the head of your party. Enjoy

Bacon Infused Smoked Bloody Mary Recipe:

So which process makes the best bacon vodka? We having a video coming with the verdict.