Bought Heat Check – it’s not good, so I made it good!

Kroger had a bunch of bottles of Heat Check vodka in their clearance aisle for less than 9 bucks a bottle. I'm a fan of spicy stuff and of a good spicy bloody mary. It just so happened this was a couple days before Thanksgiving, when I knew my dad, brother-in-law, and I would be doing some late morning drinking. So I bought a bottle. Searched for reviews while I was in the checkout line and immediately found a site with two reviews, both one star, both talking about how not only is it not spicy, but it also tastes terrible. But in thinking at this price, it will probably be fine with some tomato juice and celery salt, right? So I bought it.

We opened it, and while it wasn't as bad as the reviews made it sound, no one who tasted it had anything very positive to say. None of us used it in our drinks; we each just had a small sip and closed it back up.

So I got to thinking, I bet this wouldn't taste half bad if we got some actual spice and pepper flavor in there. And I just so happened to still have a baggie of my last pepper harvest in my fridge… A few Carolina Reapers and a handful of bico roxa peppers. I sliced them up and steeped them in about a cup of vodka for a couple days. Filtered it through a fine mesh seive and then through a paper napkin, back into the bottle with the rest of the vodka.

Hot damn, it got SPICY! But it's also really tasty, and I can't wait to try it with my next bloody mary. Or maybe even try cooking with it!