My housemates and I were planning a party, and we decided that an excellent drinking game would involve shooting all the colors of the rainbow. And thus, Skittles Vodka was born.

Project Steps

Sort and count the Skittles and the vodka.

Sort the Skittles into bowls by color. You need 180g of each color, and since Skittles are about 1.125g each, that’s 160 Skittles. You can add more Skittles for more flavor.

We found that medium-quality vodka ended up tasting like medicine (particularly the cherry flavor), so use a better- or high-quality vodka. We used one 750ml bottle for each flavor.

Pour out and reserve 1/8 of the vodka from each bottle. Drop the Skittles by color into each bottle, then top off with the reserved vodka. (Enjoy the leftovers at your leisure.)

Alternatively, put the Skittles into 5 separate jars and pour equal amounts of vodka into them. Give each bottle a good shake and set them aside overnight to dissolve the candy.

Filter out the candy residue, and enjoy.

Besides sugar and flavoring, Skittles contain some lovely filler. This is the white stuff that ends up floating on top. It’s pretty horrible, so it needs to be filtered out. We filtered the liquid through several layers of paper towels pushed down into a strainer. It takes a while, and the stuff left behind is pretty gross, but it’s worth it.

I liked the green flavor best — it was the closest to the original Skittle flavor. Red tasted like cough syrup. Try mixing orange with club soda over ice for a refreshing, summery drink.

Conclusion

This project first appeared in CRAFT Volume 08, page 131.