Infusing?

[Souter Fell]

Now normally I'm not a "sour" guy but I brought home some Pisco from Peru and it's great. Now while I was down there, I had a bunch where the Pisco was infused with different things. The best being the hot chili.

My question: how do i prep chilis to be infused in a bottle and about how long to I have to let it sit. Figured I'd let you guys have a shot at it.

[Chigworthy]

Now normally I'm not a "sour" guy but I brought home some Pisco from Peru and it's great. Now while I was down there, I had a bunch where the Pisco was infused with different things. The best being the hot chili.

My question: how do i prep chilis to be infused in a bottle and about how long to I have to let it sit. Figured I'd let you guys have a shot at it.

Eric Ripert has an excellenct Puerto Rican pisco recipe in his book "A Return to Cooking". It's not really an infusion; it's a fermentation. I would post a run down of the recipe here, but the book is packed away in the garage. It's a decent book, but if you don't want to buy it, just look up the recipe when you're in the bookstore.

The basic concept of the recipe is to steep the skin of a pineapple in some hot water for a while, then bottle it with garlic cloves and chiles, and some sugar. Cover the lid with some tinfoil to get the petri dish effect which will allow gas to escape but not let microorganisms in. Let it ferment away for a while then drizzle some olive oil into the bottle which will form a sort of "seal" floating on the surface of the pisco. I tried it once and I used a "grolsch-type" (flip top) condiment bottle. I went rogue on the instructions and actually boiled the pineapple skin. Being a homebrewer, it is hard for me not sterilize an ingredient, but the bacteria present on the garlic and chiles was not enough to ferment the pisco, and the cornucopia of bacteria on the pineapple skin had been killed by my boiling. In other words, follow Ripert's recipe exactly.