A few months ago, we got an email from the lovely Samantha Harrigan sending a missive to the motley crew of cocktail bloggers to ask if we would be interested in participating in a little contest.? Oval Vodka wanted new and interesting infusions.

The rules were pretty simple.? We had to create an infusion using Oval and come up with a unique cocktail using at least 1.5 oz of the infusion.? The infusions were to be judged during Tales of the Cocktail by Rick Stutz, Gabriel Szaszko and Chantal Tseng.? The judging criteria was based on infusion aroma, infusion taste, infusion creativity, cocktail taste, cocktail balance and cocktail creativity.? The winner of the contest would have two nights of their stay paid for by Oval.

It sounded like a lot of fun and I jumped at the opportunity.? But then came the “what-the-hell-do-I-make” panic.? I ended up with two infusions.? The first was a clementine infusion using fresh clementines.? The aroma and color was redolent of fresh clementine.? But, a basic orange infusion wouldn’t win on creativity and seemed to run of the mill.? I had been playing with coconut water lately as a cocktail ingredient and decided I wanted to use it as a mixer.

When I think of coconut, I think of tiki drinks, frozen slushy drinks, islands, the sea and Thai food.? Ohhhh . . . thai food.? That would certainly be original!? Next was to think of the flavors associated with thai food and island/Polynesian-type drinks.? Lime?? Ginger?? Spices?? Check, check, check.? But I wanted something a little more obscure.? Lemongrass!

So here is my infusion:

Thai-Spiced Oval Vodka
16 oz Oval Vodka
1 9-inch stalk of lemongrass, cut into small rounds
2 quarter-sized rounds of fresh ginger
peel of 2 limes
1 2-inch piece of cinnamon*
4 cloves

-Place everything in a container and infuse for one week shaking once a day. After a week strain all the solids and re-bottle.

*After the contest, I was speaking with Chantal looking for critiques and her main thought on my infusion was that the cinnamon was too strong.? I tend to agree with that assessment.? In the future, and if you’re making this yourself, I would remove the cinnamon and cloves after three days.

For the cocktail, I came up with:

Andaman Sun
1.5 oz Thai-spiced Oval Vodka
1.5 oz coconut water
1 oz Piloncillo** syrup (1.5:1 strength)
.5 oz fresh lime juice
.25 oz coconut cream

-Shake everything with ice and strain into a chilled glass.? Garnish with a lime wheel.
**Piloncillo is South American unrefined brown sugar.? You can find it in ethnic markets.? If you can’t find it, you can substitute simple syrup made from dark brown sugar (1.5:1 strength) or you can substitute .75 oz simple and .25 oz molasses.? It won’t be exactly the same with the substitutions but you’ll still have a tasty drink.

The contest judging occurred at the Mixoloseum house in New Orleans.? Each of the entries were made by Chris Stanley, a very talented mixologist at the Clover Club in New York City.? Chris worked behind the bar at the Mixo house several nights during Tales.? His drinks were some of the best I had during the entire week.

And the results of the contest?? I WON!!!!

Woot!? Thanks go out to Sam, Chantal, Gabe, and Rick!? And thanks to Oval Vodka for the opportunity! And a special thanks to Steve Raye who offered to pay for the entire cost of two nights at the condo, rather than just my half of two nights.? You can read Sam’s write-up of the contest here.

What a great event and a great surprise during Tales!? Cheers!