A few weeks ago, I wrote about the food matching capabilities and other general glories of aquavit. I received a ton of email asking for recipes, and I also got this question: What makes aquavit so different from infused vodka?Well, smartly made infused vodka is no different than aquavit. And by that logic, gin could be called flavored vodka, too; but then that’s oversimplifying. The term aquavit references a certain bag of tricks, a certain set of flavors(much as gin has its hallmark flavors, added to a plain/neutral spirit, the top three that make up aquavit’s profile being caraway, fennel, and dill.You could make a more sweet spice smelling aquavit by introducing star anise or even cardamom and backing off on the dill (whole seeds and sticks, NO powdered spice). A more savory approach would concentrate on caraway, dill, and maybe coriander, cumin, even peppercorns. Again, all seeds or whole spices. Start with a teaspoon of each, less for the more pungent spices like cardamom.Here’s a really simple recipe for aquavit to use/make your own from Andreas Viestad, Scandanavia’s answer to Emeril.Aquavit is a really clean spirit, and I don’t know another way to say that. So don’t use crap vodka. If you make aquavit at home, clean your vodka before you infuse it. You’ll want to pull the old in-house charcoal-filtering trick with your Brita pitcher. (Run a not-too-cheap vodka through the filter about 4 times and make your own damn luxury vodka. Frosty bottle not included.)