Apricosmo Infusion

There's all sorts of flavored vodkas.... but in the US you'll be hard pressed to find an apricot flavored vodka.  Yes, there's apricot liqueurs, and all the added sugar they contain, and there's many a citron vodka flavor, most of them orangey or lemony... not apricot-ish.  And as Dr Desert Flower has taken a liking to Fez's Apricosmos, we've begun to infuse our own here chez nous.  It's remarkably simple to do, it just takes patience.

First, start with a quality vodka that you normally like.  We get the giant Kirkland (Costco) 1.75 bottle that is as good or better than Kettle One or Grey Goose (in blind taste tests).  Then, cut up several handfuls of dried apricots.  Yes, organic ones without sulfites would be better, but I had only Turkish with sulfites available.  You can quarter them, but what I do is slice them diagonally, for maximum cross section exposure, in thirds for the smaller apricots and in diagonal quarters for the larger ones. 
Then, put the apricots in the bottom of a sun ice tea jar, and add about one third of the bottle of vodka.   Let it sit, for at least a week, preferably 2 weeks.  Some online recommendations state "2 months" but I think that is excessive.  The last batch we made was about 3 weeks and it was awesome.  After 2 to 3 weeks, pour the vodka out of the ice tea container and into a used Citron vodka bottle.  Viola, you have your own supply of apricot flavored vodka now, naturally.  Toss the residual bits of apricots that have infused into the garbage.

Why toss them?  Well, all the deliciousness of the apricots goes into the vodka, and all the bitter nastiness goes into the sliced apricots.  How do I know?  I ate several of the blanched, infused, fruit remnants, hoping that each one would get better.  By the time I got to the 4th one, it was truly disgusting, and the rest were banished to the trash.