Milk And Sugar Are All You Need To Sweeten Up Vodka

In John Green's "Looking for Alaska," the Colonel makes "ambrosia" (a concoction of five parts milk to one part vodka) in his dorm room. Maybe you can draw parallels between this scene and your own collegiate experience, or maybe you're just a discerning fan of a killer White Russian. Either way, love it or doubt it, milk and vodka make an unlikely cocktail pairing that works. With the addition of a little sugar, milk can be just the remedy to vodka's bordering painful, paint-thinner-like sting.

If you haven't met before, allow us to introduce you to milk liqueur. All it takes to make are equal parts vodka, whole milk, and granulated sugar. You could even use heavy cream here; the higher the fat content, the more stable the end result. Either way, this milk liqueur comes out strong, sweet, and accessible, flavored like a boozy ice cream sundae with caramel drizzle.

Pro tip: A small amount of citrus will help the milk's coagulation process. When making your own, add a small squirt of lemon juice into the mix, if desired; just keep in mind that adding too much lemon can impact the flavor, which might be a welcome addition depending on your preference.

To whip up a batch of milk liqueur, combine all the ingredients in a mason jar with a lid, then stash the container in a dark corner or cool cabinet for 10 days. As you pass each day, give the container a few good shakes. Over the course of a week and a half, the milk will change from white to a honey-yellow color. Don't freak out — during this long game, the vodka keeps the milk from spoiling, and while the milk does curdle and separate over time (which is admittedly ugly), that's what the next step is for: straining. Once the allotted time has passed, give the denatured mixture several thorough strains through a paper coffee filter to catch all the milk solids, leaving behind a clear liquid with a sweet malted aroma. In a lidded decanter at room temperature, it'll keep for up to six months.

You can use this sweet milk liqueur anywhere you might normally use a cream-based liqueur in your mixology arsenal. White Russians, mudslides, and Brandy Alexanders are good places to start. It'd even make a stellar boozy chai. For a more complex flavor, you could add in that lemon juice we mentioned earlier and some grated bittersweet chocolate to round out the acidic profile. For a dessert-froward approach, swap regular milk for chocolate milk.