Turning 1 Infussion into 3 Cocktail Ingredients in Minutes + My Favorite Negroni Variation!

Hi, Friends of Cocktails! Today I'm going to show you how one simple idea can be quickly turned into several different cocktail ingredients.

This all started a few weeks ago when I went into the forests at my mom's place to forage for spruce tips, and then I was inspired to create a spruce tip infusion. I then turned it into a vermouth, a syrup, and a liqueur, which then came together to make one of my favorite Negroni variations I've ever put on Cocktail Time. The best part? This method isn't just limited to spruce tips. Once you understand the process, you can apply it to different herbs, spices, fruits, and botanicals, and keep experimenting with those flavors long after the season itself is over.

Now, even if you're watching this outside of spruce tip season, frozen spruce tips work perfectly for everything we're making today too. You could even use mature spruce branches, although the flavor won't be quite as bright and fresh. So let’s first create a concentrated spruce tip base, then transform it into several completely different ingredients. It’s Cocktail Time!

Spruce Tip Infusion

● 500mL · 16.66oz Vodka

● 120g Spruce Tips

● 3g Lemon Peel

Combine everything in a vacuum bag and seal it. I'm using a vacuum chamber, but a classic vacuum sealer would work too, and if you don't have either you can get resealable sous vide bags and use the water submersion hack to push out the air before closing the seal. Next place your sealed bag in a sous vide bath set to 52°C (125°F) and cook it for 3 hours. This is a low temperature, but it will help us preserve many of the bright, fresh notes that make spruce tips so interesting in the first place.

Don’t forget to shake the bag during cooking too to make sure all ingredients are getting along in there. Once finished, chill the bag completely before opening. Then strain the infusion through a muslin cloth placed in a potato ricer, which will allow you to press out as much liquid as possible for maximum flavor. Bottle and label your spruce tip base if you'll store it for future use, or have it ready to make the other ingredients straight away.

If you want, you can customize your infusion further by replacing the spirit with a light gin, blanco tequila, or even aquavit. But because we're creating several different ingredients from this extraction, vodka gives us the most versatility down the line, starting with the one I'm most excited about: a spruce tip vermouth. Or perhaps more accurately, a fortified wine with spruce tips.

But before we make the vermouth, we'll quickly need to make a couple of tinctures to give it its characteristic bitterness. These are simple to put together and great to have on hand for future recipes too.

Wormwood Tincture

● 3g Wormwood

● 75mL · 2.5oz 100 Proof Vodka

Gentian Tincture

● 3g Gentian

● 75mL · 2.5oz 100 Proof Vodka

Place the wormwood and vodka into a sous vide bag and the gentian and vodka into another one, seal them, then infuse in a sous vide bath set to 60°C (140°F) for 3 hours. Once done, take out the bags and leave them to cool to room temperature before cutting them open and straining the bittering agents out. Bottle and label them both in a dasher bottle, and we’re ready to make some spruce tip vermouth! 

Spruce Tip Vermouth

● 470mL · 15.66oz Dry Riesling Wine

● 120mL · 4oz Spruce Tip Infusion

● 88g Simple Syrup

● 10g Forest Honey

● 1.6g Wormwood Tincture

● 0.3g Gentian Tincture

Instead of creating a separate infusion, we're using the spruce tip base we already made to fortify the vermouth. For the wine component I'm using a dry Rhein Riesling, which works really well with spruce tips by highlighting their citrusy and resinous flavor. I intentionally picked forest honey too, as it adds a bit more depth and helps tie the flavors together.

Just combine all the ingredients and mix using a magnetic stirrer or a spoon until everything is fully dissolved. Now come the bittering agents in the form of tinctures, and feel free to customize the flavor profile of your vermouth. If you want something lighter and more wine-forward, use less. If you want something closer to a traditional vermouth, add a little more.

Once everything is dissolved and mixed together, your spruce tip vermouth is ready to be bottled and enjoyed. What I love about this approach is that the wine never gets heated, so it keeps much more of its original freshness and character. Store it in the fridge too so it's always served chilled, and don't be surprised if you end up enjoying it on its own too - traditional vermouth is often thought of as a modifier, but this one is special enough to sip by itself.

Next let’s see how our infusion can be used to elevate a basic simple syrup too. 

Spruce Tip Syrup

● 180mL · 6oz Simple Syrup

● 6mL Spruce Tip Infusion

This one is as simple as it sounds. We're combining simple syrup with some of the spruce tip infusion… and yes, that's really it. The infusion is concentrated enough that even a small amount completely transforms the syrup, giving you a result that captures the fresh citrus and forest character of spruce tips. Perfect for highballs, sours, and all kinds of seasonal cocktails and mocktails too.

Now if you want something that’s even more versatile, you can also use the same approach as the syrup to make a spruce tip liqueur. 

Spruce Tip Liqueur

● 250mL · 8.33oz Spruce Tip Infusion

● 160mL · 5.33oz Simple Syrup

It’s once again time for the magnetic stirrer. Once everything is combined, just bottle and label your spruce tip liqueur, and that’s it again! You can of course add the right amount of sugar and water while making the original infusion to make a liqueur too, but then you're stuck with only the liqueur, and more importantly, I've found that I get better results by creating the infusion first and sweetening it afterwards. This way you're not lowering the ABV of the original infusion, and the same base gives you much more flexibility across multiple ingredients. 

Over time you may notice a little haze or sediment forming at the bottom of the bottle. That's completely normal, and you can just shake the bottle before using it or run the liqueur through a coffee filter to make it clearer. If you have a cabin in the woods, or even if you're dreaming of having one, this liqueur is a liquid version of sitting on your porch in the middle of the forest and enjoying that moment with all of your senses.

And now for the final chapter: the cocktail. The idea that was born in that foraging expedition will now be mixed together to make a Negroni like no other.

Forest Negroni Bianco

● 30mL · 1oz Mediterranean Gin

● 30mL · 1oz Spruce Tip Vermouth

● 22.5mL · 0.75oz Italicus

● 2 drops 20% Saline Solution

● Spruce Tip Garnish

Like most other Negronis, this is a stirred cocktail, so start with a chilled mixing glass then add the gin, spruce tip vermouth, and Italicus. Don't forget about two drops of saline solution, then add ice and stir. Strain into a chilled glass over a large ice sphere and garnish with a spruce tip.

This is far from your typical Negroni build, but the floral and citrus notes of Italicus help bridge the gap between the gin and the spruce tip vermouth, tying the whole drink together. Like I said in the intro, this is probably one of my favorite Negroni variations I've ever made - and it all started with a single batch of spruce tips. With that we created 4 components, plus a cocktail… but more importantly, we created a system.

Once you understand this approach, you can apply it to almost any seasonal ingredient and continue using those flavors long after the season itself is over. I've got a lot of exciting ideas for future episodes, so stick around, Friends of Cocktails. I'll see you soon!