We Tried Making 3 Summery Fruit-Infused Alcohols

Confession: We're not the best at effortlessly whipping up homemade cocktails. Throwing together a batch of spritzers or making a pitcher of frosé for fast and festive summer sips is one thing. But a specialty vodka, gin, or whiskey drink? That takes mixology expertise and knowledge, or at the very least, a recipe to research and follow.

Which is exactly why we decided to experiment with a tempting cheap and easy hard alcohol hack: at home, fruit-infused spirits. We've seen such bottles for sale on the bottom shelves of our local liquor stores. And we've even turned up our noses and passed them by for the pricier plain options. But making a batch at home from scratch with fresh summer fruit actually holds some Pinterest-like charm. It also holds the potential for sprucing up a cheaper bottle of booze (that we might otherwise render un-drinkable) into a pre-made, and ready to pour on-the-rocks, easy summer sip.

So we gave it a try with three cheap bottles of booze (vodka, gin, and whiskey) and a handful of fresh fruits and herbs. The best part about this hack? Measurements, preferred ingredient combinations, and timing are all up to you! Scroll on to see which out of the infusions we attempted actually landed a spot on our go-to summer cocktail list and which we'll just be dumping down the drain.