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Skittles Vodka Tutorial

Infusing vodka with Skittles is a very popular trend right now. There are a couple of different ways to do it. My way involves separating all the Skittles into their separate flavors and making five different bottles of Skittles vodka.

For this project, you’ll need:

  • One 1.75 liter bottle of vodka (I used Stoli – you don’t need the most expensive vodka, but do avoid the cheap ones)
  • Five 8.5 ounce flasks or bottles (I got mine from The Container Store (get 8% cash back through Ebates)- here’s a very similar one from Amazon, and another that looks like a retro milk jug. For a Halloween party, serve these neon-colored concoctions in test tube shooter glasses.)
  • One 1 pound bag of Skittles
  • Five empty plastic water bottles
  • A funnel
  • Bowls for separating the Skittles into flavors
  • A measuring cup (not pictured)
  • Coffee filters or paper towels

You’ll also want to cover your workspace with newspaper or freezer paper – this infusion can get messy. If you’re making a different sized batch, here’s the formula you need to know: I used 60 Skittles to 6 ounces of vodka, which yields about 8 ounces of infused vodka. If you want to make 1.5 times that, or 3 times that, just multiply your amounts.

Step 1: Separate Skittles into Flavors

Start by simply separating the Skittles into flavors. You want 60 of each.
separating

Step 2: Setting up your Infusion Bottles

Fill your water bottles with 6 ounces of vodka each. It doesn’t need to be exact – you can always even it out later by pouring in a bit more vodka to the ones that come out with less.
waterbottles-300x161

addingskittles

Step 3: Add the Skittles

Pour the Skittles of one flavor into one infusion bottle, then pour the next flavor of Skittles into the next infusion bottle, and so on until all five bottles have a pile of Skittles soaking in the vodka.

You could certainly be more sophisticated than I was here, and use a funnel to pour the Skittles of each flavor into one of the bottles. The reason I did it this way was that I felt it would be orangeeasier to wash each flavor of Skittles off my hands before moving onto the next one than it than to get that flavor out of the funnel each time – that plastic tends to hold onto the flavors, skin doesn’t.

Step 4: Shake ‘em, shake ‘em, shake ‘em

shakingNow your infusion bottles all have Skittles in the bottom. Give each bottle a good shake – the more, the better. In my picture here, you can see that the colored candy coating has already rubbed off into the vodka, but the white insides of the Skittles still have a lot of dissolving to do. After shaking them, set them aside for a few hours. It’s a good idea to shake them again then, especially if you’re making a bigger batch. My Skittles all dissolved overnight.

Once they’re all dissolved, you’ll notice a lot of white muck floating at the top. We’ll take care of this in Step 6.

infusion

Step 5: Strain

funnelandcupThere are a number of ways to strain this stuff and get all the white gunk out. Some people prefer paper towels, but I used coffee filters and found they worked just as well. I put a funnel inside a measuring cup.

coffeefiltersThen I put four coffee filters in the funnel. It’s hard to say exactly how many you’ll need, since not all coffee filters are exactly the same. I’ll tell you one thing I did learn, though: orange and green needed more filtration than the others. I discovered this when I thought I was finished, and found a little bit of white stuff still floating in those two flavors. No problem, though: I just strained them again through one more coffee filter, and that took care of it. So if you find you haven’t strained it thoroughly enough, the good news is: you can always fix that later.

pouringThen I poured one of the infusions into my strainer setup. I had to pour about a quarter of my infusion in, then wait for some of it to soak through, then pour another quarter in, until I was done. (If the strainer clogs with white gunk, use a spoon to scrape the white gunk out of the way.) In the end, you’ll have about 8 ounces of Skittle infused vodka. Then I dumped the funnel and coffee filters into one of the bowls I’d used earlier for counting out Skittles, to catch drips as I carried it over to the sink. I washed everything out for re-using (except the coffee filters, of course – those I just rinsed before disposing of, so the sugar wouldn’t attract ants).

intobottle Then I took the liquid from the measuring cup and poured it into a flask, via the now-clean funnel. You can see here that the green is a little thick, and it shouldn’t have been – that’s why I ended up having to re-filter it. Then I rinsed the funnel out again.

Repeat this process for each flavor.

Here you can see about how much gunk the filtration takes out:

gunk

Step 6: Chill and Serve

Now you’ve got 5 flasks or bottles of Skittles infused vodka:

flasks

Stick them in the freezer for several hours – overnight is fabulous…

freezer

…and they’re ready to serve:

chilled

Now, these are pretty strong on their own – nearly pure vodka. They are also very sweet. You can drink them straight, served up in a chilled martini glass, or you can use them in a cocktail:

  • Mix them with ginger ale, 7-up or Sprite to taste
  • Mix them with cola to taste (diet cola cuts the sweetness a little)
  • Serve them on the rocks to water it down a little
  • Some people mix them with fruit juice. I didn’t try this, because to me the Skittles were plenty of sweetness for my taste buds.
  • Everyone’s taste varies – there are so many directions you can take this drink in, you really should try anything that sounds good to you!

Cheers!

{ 379 comments… read them below or add one }

Tom

I’m making these for a Halloween party and using these to make/ display them.

http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/product/test-tubes

They are called Baby Soda Bottles or Giant test tubes and that’s the best price i found.

Reply

patsy

wouldn’t the good old stand by…cool aid..be just as good…no straining..no mess….all of it is just artifical color and sugar.

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Kristina

I’ve tried mixing cool-aid and vodka to get this effect before, it works no where near as well, the crystals don’t like to dissolve and there’s barely any flavor.

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sabdra garcia

so yeah i think dis is preety awesome haha

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Joe

Don’t put vodka in plastic… Joe

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matt

Joe it’s just overnight. It won’t hurt the taste with cheapo Stoli and that much suger.

Don’t store it that way though.

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Jess

Hi, i have been making skittle vodka for several months for the pub i work in…. Im constantly having a problem with making the orange one. We serve ours neat in test tubes, but the orange one always seperates? Clear vodka at the bottom with a head of orange on top? Any thoughts as to why this is, i use the exact same process you have but i do do it on a much larger scale, i make 1.5Litres at a time.

Thanks
Jess

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Jen

Jess, I’ve come across others with the same problem, but unfortunately I never encountered it myself, so I don’t know. Anyone else?

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RJ

type of vodka?

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janet

how long does the skittle vodka keep? A week, two weeks or longer?

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dylan

would Mason jars work for this? I have many of them laying around and no use for them…that is until i get some flavored vodka into them. :P

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Katie

Mason Jars would be fine. It holds ‘shine, so why not vodka!

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Laura

How long would this keep if i was making them as Christmas gifts?

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jennifer

How long does the vodka keep? i will be adding this to my holiday gift boxes

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Lotts

definitely going to make this, as pre drinks. how long long would a ‘batch’ last for? and you could make skittle vodka jelly yeahh? or nott?

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Casey

http://i.imgur.com/VH9U0.jpg

Just thought I’d share mine, since I made these based on this recipe :p
Bottles bought from Ebay.

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Robin

Hi, Can you cut these vodka mixture with more vodka to make them thinner without sacrificing the flavour? I don’t want these too thick.

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Jen

The flavor gets weaker, the more vodka you add. But they have a huge amount of flavor to start with, so you might find cutting it a little still leaves plenty of flavor to your taste.

That said, I don’t think they’re thick at all (not like some liqueurs, for example), if you strain enough. Mine never have been.

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Keiran Wyatt-Nicolle

We tried this and had great fun doing so.

However we substituted the Vodka for Oliver Twist London Distilled Gin and Sherbet Lemons. Oh my word it was fantastic.

Check us out at http://olivertwistgin.com

Have fun :)

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natalie

I def want to try this, maybe with a light vodka though like voli

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kin cain

i’ve made blue raseberry vodka jolly rancher…..it was the best i’ve ever had!!!!

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Jeff

Made the same way as the Skittles vodka just w/o the filtration, or did you still filter it?

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kin cain

don’t mix grape and apple jolly rancher togather………..it looks like brown shit!!!!!!

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melissa ramirez

it can be any type of vodka right?

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brendo

I am pro at this by now with perfect ratios.

Since sugars last a hella long time and vodka as well. Im sure you could keep this stored away for a very long time. Upwards of a year without the taste vhanging very much. Just my opinion

Thanks again for helping me the first batch -hugeee success! Now i have friends:)

-B

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Kode

I followed your tutorial to the letter aside from my choice of bottles and it worked great. Left the Skittles sit over night and they were fully dissolved; however, once I got to the straining part I tried 4 filters and would have been waiting probably 8 hours for one color to strain. So I dropped it to 3 filters and the same effect, dropped it to 2 filters and still only one small drip every few seconds so I moved to 1 filter and the process was SLIGHTLY faster, but is still going to take WAY too long to strain.

Is there some trick to the filtering or something better and much faster to use than coffee filters?

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Jen

You can go through the comments for ideas – the filters have always worked fine for me, but others had the same problems you had (guess it’s different brands?), so they tried paper towels, cheesecloth… I think someone even used a french press.

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Clarissa

I would love to know how the french press did, because I don’t have the patience to strain with filters lol. How ever I love the Jolly Rancher Vodka so I might try this anyways.

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Chris

I used the press the first time i made it and it works brilliantly, it just takes one strain to get it right. however the clean up is a little messy :)

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Connie Henderson

kode, I had the same problem with the coffee filters, I tried one filter and it only dripped a little bit then it quit all together, so I used cheese cloth made it about 3 layers and it strained quick the first time, then I used the same cloth and re-drained it again, had to use a small spoon to scrape the bottom of the cloth just a little bit and it finished the straining great!!!

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d10de

Coffee filters are your best bet for getting all the crap out of the mix. I made a batch today, and instead of waiting for the whole to filter through, I found I got the same result by wrapping an index finger around the coffee filter, meaning I ended up with a little ‘bag’ of liquid that I then gently squeezed through by slowly clenching my fist.

As long as you’re not over-zealous with the squeezing and don’t accidentally burst the bag, the entire process can be fast-tracked from a day or so down about half an hour – fantastic if you’re a student like myself in need of something tasty to drink ASAP :P

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sharoocci

Thanks a lot man i made it and my friends especially my fiancee liked it a lot :)

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Gabrielle

Do you think red hots would work as well?

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Jen

I’ve wondered about that – want me to do another tutorial with those, and maybe rum instead of vodka?

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sarah

may be a stupid question, but why can’t I use plastic bottles? I was thinking of making them in the plastic bottles like you showed above, then strain them and re-pour back into the same bottles. its only because I’m just drinking it with a friend, not giving as a gift or anything :)

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Jen

You can if you want, but I was concerned it might flavor the liquor.

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Hope

Has anyone ever tried using sour skittles?

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Bio

I’ve tried it with sour skittels, the process is the same, the taste is not that much diffrent, not that sweet, and the stoli-taste comes more throu it. but not that bad :)

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Dave.

An idea I may try that would work I think, use a home coffee machine, put the vodka in where the water goes, put the skittles in where the coffee goes, warm vodka over the skittles should make melting quicker, and filters it out for you at the same time.

Dave.

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Blonde

Are you for real??

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Angela

Hey, I was wondering if you knew what type of container you have for storing the 5 bottles in the freezer? Meaning do you know where you got it, or how many gallons/oz it is? I just like the fact that it’s so organized. Thanks!

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Jen

It actually came with my fridge. But there are some similar ones here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000YZJAC/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=mixthatdrink-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=B0000YZJAC&adid=0T3WQ555K0KK1M9EZMCQ&

Just put “freezer organizer” or “freezer storage” into Amazon or a search engine to find some other options. Hope that helps!

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ivan

What if i try to warm the vodka up in plastic bottles by placing them in warm water for white stuff to dissolve faster??..think it would work faster then over night..then cool it.

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Lifesf

To the warm vodka people: ever cooked with wine? What happens to the alcohol when it is warmed up? Try this: take two cups, in one: put water, in the next, put alcohol,.. Warm them up,.. Compare both. Or,… You can alway just check the difference of the thermal energy capacity of both. Or ask a cook. Or,… Anyways,…. I like the skittles idea, shall try that! Thank you!!! :)

Reply

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