I'm Making My Own Extracts & You Can Too!

I've had a big bottle of cheapo vodka burning a hole in my cabinets for quite some time now!  My plan was to (a) make my own extracts, (b) make my own essential oils, and (c) make my own perfume.  I've had perfume-related fails before, as you may know, so I'm still trying to figure out how I want to do that.

Months ago, I bought some dried juniper berries which I've been wanting to turn into extract and essential oil, so that's my plan at this point.  Rather than sit around waiting for shit to happen and THEN blog about it, I decided to start now and do this entry in realtime.

Looks like a lot more than it actually is.

I used about an ounce of dried food-grade juniper berries for this little experiment, and about 8 ounces of vodka.  (Yeah, I'm making a lot!  I guess it'll be kind of like fake gin.)  The research I've done suggests using a bottle or jar with dark-colored glass as light can interfere with the integrity of the extract, but I've decided to settle for a family-sized plastic Ragu jar which I'll be keeping away from light.

The juniper berries will be absorbing the alcohol, which will then absorb all of the delicious juniper essence from the berries.  Juniper berries have a somewhat oily consistency on the inside, so they should yield a very nice extract in a relatively short amount of time.  I'll probably keep these marinating for about a week or two.  I may give the berries a good squish after about a week, but when the extract is finished, I will drain it and bottle it.  And don't worry, I won't forget to take pictures! :)