Make Your Own Christmas Booze Part 1 - The Elixir Of Life

Some say there's nothing better than chocolate... and there's a school of thought out there that maybe booze is one of the finest inventions man ever made... so imagine, just imagine, if you could combine the two at the drop of a hat, without expertise or great expense and get the smooth comforting deliciousness of chocolate followed by that boozey warm fuzziness of a cheeky shot of vodka..... just call me your early Christmas Fairy.

Oh, and thank my old school friend Aely for prompting me into this recipe - she was looking for nice presents she could make for relatives and this one is easy and would look great served up in a gold painted decorative bottle.

Make a couple of bottles though -  at a party, it goes quick :)

You need a 200g bar of chocolate for every 750ml bottle of vodka you want to make into this lovely liqueur. Milk chocolate works better than dark for this recipe but experimenting with flavoured chocolate is also good - Mint Aero in particular is delicious!

Also, a word of warning: be patient when the chocolate is melting, you don't want to overheat the vodka to try and speed things up because it will all evaporate off very quickly.

1. Break up the chocolate into pieces small enough to fit through the neck of your vodka bottle.

 2. Boil a deep pan of water and when it gets to a nice rolling boil, turn off the gas but leave the pan standing on your stove. While the water's heating, stuff all the chocolate pieces into the bottle of vodka (you might need to pour yourself a good healthy vodka and tonic with a nice wedge of fresh lime to help with proceedings and to make space for the chocolate, but that's no great hardship).

3. Stand the bottle of vodka in the pan with the lid partially off - you want it to prevent the vodka from evaporating off too quick, but you don't want it on tight or the bottle might pop!

3. Let the vodka stand in the pan, swirling the bottle to move the melting chocolate around periodically.

4. Once all the chocolate is melted you can pour it into a decorative bottle if you're giving it as a gift, or just pop it in the fridge to chill and serve it neat, over ice, or in a martini glass with crushed ice and milk to make a wickedly good boozey chocolate sundae martini :)